The Two-Fold Quest of the Magi

By Pastor Jacob Doran
The Church of God in Flathead Valley (MT)

I didn’t grow up with any knowledge of the season of Advent, the Twelve Days of Christmas or the celebration of Epiphany. I have learned of these only in recent years.

However, the more that I read about them, the more inspired I become to live out what they represent and to embrace them as means of sharing the true message of Christmas with my family and others in my life.

I do not compel us to incorporate these observances into our own Christmas traditions, but to seize upon the passion that first inspired them and by which they both keep Christ’s redemptive work at the very center of the holidays and redirect the focus of the coming year, bringing us ever closer to the DIVINE passion.

There's something seeing candles in windows that always thrilled me as a child, when my Grandparents took me out to see the Christmas lights. There was a certain warmth and enchantment that excited both a sense of wonder and an inner peace that prevailed throughout the Christmas season, so long as those candles remained in the windows.

I now understand that the candles and Christmas lights are meant to reflect the Christ’s light, as it shone to the Gentiles, which is a good excuse for me to leave up the tree a bit too long, and to leave the Christmas lights up, even longer. I am notorious for continuing the singing of Christmas songs and reflection on the Christmas story until its glow burns so brightly within my soul that it sets the tone for the entire new year.

Last year, I shared with you little about the Twelve Days of Christmas, which traditionally began on the evening of December 25 and culminated on the morning of January 6 with the observance of Epiphany—a theme upon which I want to elaborate today (being Jan. 6).

Epiphany marks the arrival of the wise men in Bethlehem, where they found the Christ child, bestowed upon him their most precious gifts and worshipped him. Following the star, which they saw in the east, they journeyed to a far country to find the promised King of whom prophesies—carefully preserved with great expectancy from the days when Daniel ruled the magi in both the Babylonian and Median and Persian empires—foretold.

The wise men were astrologers and magicians, but it is evident that some of them highly esteemed Daniel’s God, seeing that Daniel’s prophesies came to pass again and again. In fact, Daniel was never wrong, and he had explained to them that it was God who gave him understanding of the things about which he spoke. Even after Daniel’s passing, some of the magi continued to believe in his prophesies about a coming king.

That is why, when they saw the star, probably having been informed by Daniel of what to look for and what the star would signify, they embarked at once for the country to which it led them. Recent discoveries about the star Regulus—known throughout history as the King Star—and an even that was noticed by even the Romans, in the very year in which we now believe Christ to have been born to the Jews, sheds much light upon how the magi must have followed the arch of the star/event in the heavens, over several months, to Bethlehem of Judea.

Over “field and found, moor and mountain,” they traveled, in search of the One whose birth the star heralded. No matter how long or hard their journey, they continued on, fully committed to find and worship the heaven-born king, whom they knew had come to lead the sons of men.

Theirs was a quest of epic proportion, worthy of the greatest liturgical heroes, the most noble and adventurous among us, with it’s object greater than any ever sought, to look upon the very face of God who had visited earth in the likeness of a tiny child and would—for a few, short years—walk among us as a man.

They not only beheld him but stood in his very presence and touched with mortal hands that divine Gift—that “holy thing”—that would change the soul a man and the direction of human history.

Epiphany means 'appearance' or 'manifestation.’ It signifies the "shining forth" or revelation of God to the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God.

The foreign wise men, who had waited hundred of years for the chance of thousand lifetimes, the chance to glimpse the divine and stand in the presence of the Creator, who rules both the heavens and the earth, came baring gifts with which to honor Him and became the first Gentiles to acknowledge Jesus as the eternal "King," as well as the first to "show" or "reveal" Him to the world as the Prince of Peace, Reconciler of man and Giver of eternal life.

This act of worship corresponded to Simeon’s blessing that this Jesus would be "a light to lighten the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32). It was one of the first evidences that Jesus came for all people, of all nations, of all races, and that the work of God in the world would not be limited to only a few.

In later history, on the evening before Epiphany (also known as Three Kings Day and the day of the Adoration of the Magi), the master of the house would traditionally write with chalk C + M + B, which has often been interpreted to stand for Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar—according to some legends, the names of the wise men—but according to Church history stood for "Christus Mansionem Benedictat,” which in English is “Christ bless this home.” In this way, they invited Christ to shed his light upon their individual homes and day-to-day lives.

A group of carolers would travel the streets of the city, recalling the journey of the wise men—a practice that is, even now, alive and well in Bavaria and Austria. From New Years Day until January 6, children would dress as the wise men (or kings) and lift up a large star on the end of a pole as they went from door to door, caroling.

I wonder if there was not a deeper meaning in the tradition, as though they were looking for Christ in those homes. Would they find Him in our homes, today? Is there room for Him amid the chaos of our day-to-day lives?

I do not attribute any great honor to the wise men, although I both admire them for their journey and envy them their experience as witnesses of Christ and the first Gentile evangelists of His coming and purpose. And, like the wise men, I am compelled to embark on a similar Gospel Quest.

In our day, Epiphany is observed as a time of focusing on the mission of the church, which is to reveal Christ as the Savior of all people and to take His message of peace, reconciliation, and eternal life to the world, along with His calling to be the people of God.

1 Peter 2:9-12: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

There were two aspects of the magi’s quest:

The first was to find the Christ child, and that must also be the first of our own priorities in the new year. We must find Christ in our daily lives. If there we have found no room for him in the place of honor, where have we relegated him to? If he have been unsuccessful in finding him amid the chaos of our daily routine, we need to resolve as did the magi that we are fully committed to this quest—that we will FIND Him, HONOR Him, WORSHIP and EXALT Him as the heaven-born King of our lives, homes, families, challenges and pursuits.

The second aspect of the magi’s quest was to take the news that the Savior and King of all the earth had come. That must be our quest in the new year, as well. As He has been a light to lighten our own hearts—if that is truly what He is—we must allow that light to shine through us and illuminate the lives of those around us.

The magi came with Great Expectations, and all of their hopes were realized in Christ. They believed on Him, worshipped Him and accepted His right to govern the lives of men. If we have also accepted His right to govern our own lives, we too shall find our expectations fully realized in the coming year, for the scripture assures us that he “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph 3:20).

And may we remember, each and every day, that we are His lights in a dark work.