Star of wonder, star of light, guide us to God’s perfect light. Amen.
“What kind of God would do this?” That was the refrain of the sermon that I preached on Christmas Eve and it’s still a good question to ask at the Feast of the Epiphany. The oddity of the story continues as does the grace that flows from it. And so, we are left pondering what kind of God would do this.
Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor wrote, “Let us revel in the light of that star beneath which the ordinary becomes holy and the holy ordinary, beneath which it becomes exceedingly clear that there is nothing here we must do or be to be loved by God.” Indeed, let us revel in this light.
And to help us do that, we turn to the magi as our guides. After all, the whole world saw the star, and it was only these magi who followed. First and foremost, calling them “magi” really is the best way to understand them. These certainly were not kings, though they may have worked for a king. But they aren’t royalty. We heard in Psalm 72, “All kings shall bow down before him,” so some interpreters wanted to take this passage from Matthew and say “See, here it is.” In the South we would say, “that dog won’t hunt.”
Nor should we really call them wise men – that makes them sound like people with a degree from Stanford, Wake Forest, or Oxford. But that’s not who they were. Matthew uses the term magoi, which is where we get the word “mage” and “magic.” It may well be that these characters were Zoroastrian priests who were in the court of a Babylonian or Persian king. These were astrologers and diviners, people who looked at the stars and the flights of birds looking for omens. Lest we look down on them for that, when we have a question, we pull out our screens and ask Google or Siri for an answer, which may or may not be accurate or helpful.
Calling them “wise men” would have us overlook how Matthew’s audience would have likely understood who they were. Matthew is Jewish and seems to be writing from a very Jewish perspective. Both Matthew and his audience would know Deuteronomy 18, which reads, “You must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the LORD.” That’s just one of many passages in Scripture that make it clear that astrology is to be avoided.
That’s why I prefer calling them magi – they’re odd, they’re outcasts, they’re off limits. And yet, they’re the ones who show up with gifts for the newborn King of Israel who also just so happens to be the King of the Universe. What kind of God would do this? Well, if we want to see the gracious oddness of God, we have to look to these odd magi as our guides; they guide us into such a conversation about the sort of God who would do this, who would come to them and guide them to Jesus.
The first revelation we receive through them is that while we are called to be a discerning people, we are not called to be a judging people. Yes, God would have us to walk in the ways of justice, mercy, and truth, and so we do need to be a discerning people. The field of ethics is a necessary and holy thing – asking questions about what is right are good questions to ask. But in Scripture, God makes it clear that divination is something we are to avoid. We therefore discern that it is not a “good” thing to be involved in. As Jesus says later in Matthew, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.” There is a danger when we live with too much fear or anticipation of tomorrow.
In The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis writes, “In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays… nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.” Even in the Garden, the mistake made by humanity was to grab for knowledge that was not ours to have.
So our discernment may well tell us astrology, divination, or just an obsession with the future are dangerous and to be avoided. But that doesn’t make it our job to judge, belittle, or condemn those who do. We see this all the time, sadly. Christians who think there’s something evil and wrong with Harry Potter and so they point fingers and yell at people for reading a work of fiction, or Christians who want to police the decisions that others make. All Christians do this – liberals bash conservatives for not being compassionate and conservatives belittle liberals for not having any values.
But we’d all do better if we discerned the right path for us to walk and leave the judgment to God. Because, if judgment would have ruled the day, the magi would have been detained as being pagan foreigners and sent right back home, or worse. As we read in First Corinthians, “Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.” We can be a discerning people without putting ourselves in God’s place of judging others. This story shows us that our God is the sort of God who connect us with people we would easily dismiss.
The second revelation given to us through these magi is about our hunger for God. As Psalm 42 puts it, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” The magi were hungry for truth and they were willing to pay a significant price in pursuit of it. We don’t know exactly where these magi were from – all Matthew says is “from the East,” which could mean Persia, Babylon, Arabia, or perhaps even as far as China. Wherever they were from, it was a long and dangerous journey – probably at least 1,000 miles which would have taken a few months each way. It would have a long and arduous journey – long days and cold nights. And though our Christmas cards portray 3 camels, it would have likely been an entire entourage with supplies and servants for the journey. They would have had protection as well – bandits waited along the roads and people carrying gold, frankincense, and myrrh would have been prime targets.
When I consider the magi, people who weren’t Jewish (or Christian), they make me look at my own faith and ask how hungry I am for God. They invested so much time and money in pursuing the star and I have greater signs than a star – I have the Cross, the Eucharist, the Resurrection. These magi guide me to ask if my faith is too comfortable, too convenient. These magi were certainly inconvenienced as they followed God and they help me to ask if I’m willing to be inconvenienced by faith.
I recently heard someone say that the great thing about Church is that you can come and find community, fellowship, and meaning, and it doesn’t cost anything. And I get that – unlike seemingly everything these days, there’s no subscription required to attend Church and though we take up a collection, it’s not required. But when I heard that person say that Church doesn’t cost anything, my immediate thought was “No, it costs us everything.” The magi’s hunger for God makes me consider my own hunger for God, what I’m willing to give to follow, and what things other than God I get filled up with.
These magi were hungry for truth, and the third revelation we see through them is that God is hungry to be known. The grace of Epiphany is that we see God will stoop to any level, to our level, to meet us. We know from Scripture, as I’ve mentioned, that God hates divination. And yet, when it came time for the message of the birth of the Messiah to be spread, God uses any and every means necessary if that’s what it takes for us to see it.
Between the years 12 BC and 5 AD, the skies were saying “Something big is happening.” It’s not that God necessarily wants to use astrology to get the point across, but God stoops to our level and says, “Fine, you’re looking at the stars for a sign, here you go.” In 12 BC, Halley’s Comet was visible, which had always been interpreted as a sign that something important was on the way. Then there were a series of planetary conjunctions that, taken together, were a once in a thousand year occurrence. Then in 5 BC, which is getting pretty close to when we think Jesus was born, there was a supernova that was recorded by Chinese astronomers which was visible for a few months. It would have appeared as a new star in the sky.
See, God isn’t interested in keeping up a reputation. “Did you hear that God uses the stars to send messages?” God doesn’t care about appearances. What God cares about is getting the message of love across, and that’s something for us to hold onto. We know that stars don’t predict the future, but some people thought they do, and so God used that to get the magi to Bethlehem.
Beloved, I don’t know what strange signs God is give you to point you towards love, but I know that those signs are all around us. God loves you so much as to stoop to our level to give us messages that we can receive and understand. God probably speaks to me differently than to you, so it’s back to the point about discerning, not judging. Yes, we do have to discern to make sure the message is from God and not something else, but we don’t need to judge if God talks to you through music and me through meditation, or vice versa. The magi show us what sort of God would do this, to use something that God expressly prohibits to share the Good News of Jesus – a God who puts love first.
Like the magi, God is calling to each of us and to all of us, showing us signs and wonders that draw us towards the love of Jesus. I know we’re a few days into 2026, and surveys tell us that means that, on average, we’re already about 10% of the way towards failing at our resolutions in the new year. So instead of worrying about all of that, how about if we pay attention to our hearts, our imaginations, our dreams, our hungers and see what wondrous things God is calling us towards.
What new light is God shining upon you? What summons from God are you noticing? What is God stirring up in your thoughts? We are being shined upon by the light of the kind of God who would do such a thing, anything, to draw us into the radiance of his love.
