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January 7, 2024Today, with the visit of the Magi, we reach the apex of the Christmas Season where we see that Christ has come not only for the Chosen People, but, as their own prophets intuited, as a light for all the nations, a light that will dispel the “thick darkness” covering the earth and the “thick clouds” covering the peoples. The story of the Magi, even in its original form, is strange and exotic: non-Jews seeking the king of the Jews, following a star, inquiring of Herod, and presenting costly gifts. Over the centuries, the Christian imagination has run wild with this tale, usually (at least in the West) limiting the Magi to three due to the number of gifts, making them kings because of Isaiah 60:3, assigning them names, having them come from Africa, Asia, and Europe (the known continents at the time), and representing them as old, middle-aged, and young. While none of these details are in St. Matthew’s account, they grasp his central message and fit in with it: Christ is for all peoples, nations, races, ages, and sexes.
The sinister note in this story is Herod, the chief priests, and the scribes. Prefiguring the Passion, St. Matthew has Herod and “all Jerusalem” greatly troubled at the Magi’s query on the whereabouts of the newborn king of the Jews. Herod’s reaction is not surprising. We know from history that this great and insane man wiped out the Hasmonean Dynasty, which he had married into, ordering the execution of his beloved wife, her brother, and his own sons. That he, with his illegitimate claims to the throne (at least in the eyes of the Jews), would feel threatened by the report of a newborn king of the Davidic line is in character, but the response of the chief priests and scribes is absolutely chilling. The Magi are seeking a king, Herod asks the chief priests and scribes where the Christ/the Messiah will be born—and they tell him! They know the prophecies and they are correct in identifying the place of his birth, but they make no attempt to seek him themselves and they disclose his whereabouts to one who could have only murderous intents. St. Matthew’s point is clear: the religious authorities should have recognized Jesus as the Messiah. They had all the information from divine revelation that they needed, but they were in collusion with a corrupt foreign power and were unwilling to have the status quo upset by him. As a professed religious and a Catholic, this makes me tremble. I wonder in our polarized Church today, in a society increasingly de-Christianized while the Gospel is being spread in new lands that are receiving it with joy, where am I, and we, missing the light of Christ, caught up in my/our own security and comfort zones? Our Lord, even as an infant, is adept at making the outsiders welcome and the comfortable, disturbed. He leads people in the most surprising ways and through the most unusual circumstances. May we not hinder their journey and be unafraid to come to the light ourselves, even if it will shake everything up.
