The Lesson of the Magi
For any of you who follow the church-year calendar, yesterday was a holiday called Epiphany. It is the day that the church celebrates the visit of the magi to the Christ child and ultimately the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles. Recently, we were discussing the magi and their visit at our Wednesday night service. It got me thinking about the role they (and more specifically, their stargazing) play in the story of Christ’s birth. I have been reading a book recently by Gerald McDermott called Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions: Jesus, Revelation & Religious Traditions. In it, McDermott postulates that while other religions cannot tell us anything about God that is not revealed in scripture, they can sometimes help us to see aspects of biblical revelation from a different perspective – with fresh eyes.
This brings us back to the magi. It is interesting to note how they came to be notified of Christ’s birth. It was through the stars. Certainly nothing unusual there; Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens “declare the glory of God (ESV).” However, the more interesting thing is how the heavens showed them that and where Christ was to be born – using secular astrological symbolism and interpretation. Anyone who understands the truths of the Bible knows that there is no credibility to astrology. God sovereignly controls all that happens in the world, not the stars. But in this case God chooses to use this pagan system to announce the birth of his Son, the Messiah, to these pagan wise men. Using the power of modern computers, we can backtrack astronomical phenomena to the time of the birth of Christ. Doing so reveals that a fascinating set of astronomical occurrences with astrological significance would have occurred – sufficient enough to get this group of magi to leave their palace court and their homeland to pay homage to a great king (for more on this, see http://www.bethlehemstar.net/dance/dance.htm). The interesting part is that not only does this astrological interpretation cause them to realize the birth of the Messiah, but to be the ones to notify the political and religious leaders in Judea. Those religious leaders, with their copies of the scriptures, must fill in some of the details, but the magi initiate the process.
This has made me think about what Theresa and I will learn as we are in Japan interacting with the Japanese. Our goal is to go to spread the light of the gospel to those who have never heard, but I think the Japanese, with their “secular” culture will have much to teach us as well. Just today I was talking with a colleague about the fact that in Japan people are not so concerned about having their own way as maintaining harmony among the group. It seems to me that their culture is better prepared to live out passages like Romans 12:17-18 & Philippians 2:1-4 than we are as Americans. Sometimes I think that we mistakenly believe that, just because a person or culture has not been permeated with the gospel, there is nothing we as Christians can learn from them. However, the truth is that all people (and thus all cultures) have been created in and contain the image of God. While they may be marred by the curse of sin, elements of that image still shine through and in some cases could even outshine that element in the lives of even a dedicated follower of Christ. My prayer is that Theresa and I can be open and humble enough to learn from them.
Pray for Theresa and I as we continue to prepare our hearts for Japan. Pray that we would be open to learning from the Japanese and would be able to quickly acclimate to the Japanese culture and lifestyle.