"The Journey’s End"

Texts: Matthew 2:1-12

The truth be told, we know next to nothing about the wise men. These characters that trek into the second chapter of Matthew’s gospel, these "magi," as the Greek calls them, they might be the biggest one hit wonders in Scripture. We don’t know their names, where they’re really from, how many there actually were, but if you’ve grown up in the church, the tale of the magi is probably as old to you as any story you know.

In the collective memory of the congregation, the magi conjure up all those Christmas pageants where the wise men are a prized role. They’re always played by the older children. It’s one of those roles you have to work up to. They’re decked out in exotic robes and crowns and carrying treasures ransacked from attics and basements, as process solemnly down the aisle and kneel reverently before the plastic baby to "pay homage." These wise men—or "wise guys" as more than one youthful troupe has dubbed itself—they fascinate us with their star-guided quest and lavish gifts to a baby king. And because inquiring minds want to know, we fill in the gaps where Matthew is frustratingly silent.

We say there must have been three, not five or seven, because three gifts are given: gold, frankincense, myrrh; we pull Isaiah 60 into the text—where Isaiah speaks of kings drawn to the brightness of the dawn—and we call the magi kings; and the multitude of camels mentioned so close to the gold and frankincense of Isaiah 60:6, Matthew doesn’t say it, but we figure that surely the magi rode camels to Bethlehem. Over the years the church decided they needed names, and by the sixth century they were dubbed Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar.

But Matthew’s tale is much sparser than what we make of it. They were "magi from the east" who saw the rising star of the child born king of the Jews, and they came to pay him homage. That’s pretty much all the text tells us. They were magi—Gentile foreigners, astrologers, fortune tellers; they were seekers—people interested in "spirituality," as we’d call it these days, folks hungry enough for something deeper that they would travel far and wide to find it. They were Gentile searchers—for wisdom, for truth, for something worthy of their worship, for someone deserving of their greatest gifts. They were seekers from outside the faith, searchers who wanted to find.

When we put it that way, they sound like a lot of people I know. Our world is full of searching people trying to find their way in life. Take any person walking down the street, sit down with them over a cup of tea and listen to their story. You’re bound to hear a tale of someone that’s on a journey—someone that’s trying figure out what it means to go through life in a way that’s more than just going through the motions, more than getting the next round of bills paid, more than finishing homework and getting to the next practice. When I see the magazines on the newsstands that promise stress relief and the community education programs that offer support groups for any number of struggles, and I know that I’m living in the midst of magi people—seeking people who are in desperate need of finding.

College students will tell you that much of their "educational experience" takes place outside the classroom. In my sophomore year of college I joined a fraternity, which proved to be one of my primary contexts for living in the name of Jesus the next three years. In many ways, this fraternity resembled all the stereotypes about Greek life—the parties and drinking, dirty jokes and all around hedonism. From time to time I’d get into conversations with other Christians on campus about why I chose to be in fellowship with guys who so clearly engaged in ways of living I didn’t like. I often wondered the same thing, and didn’t always have a good answer to those who asked. It certainly wasn’t the parties—I’d leave early and find solace in Chopin nocturnes. It wasn’t about girls—I’d already fallen for a cute one with curly blond hair. It wasn’t about acceptance—I had plenty of friends in other circles.

What it came down was their stories. I took their lives into mine, and found out that they were an awful lot like me—guys trying to figure out what it means to live in our world, and trying to make it along the way in the journey of life. The thing was, all they knew was the journey, but I knew the end. All they knew was the search, but I knew whom they were trying to find. And when you’re on a journey, knowing the end makes all the difference.

The child was born "king of the Jews," but the first ones to bend the knee were pagans from the far-flung reaches of the east. They were readers of the stars—astrologers—that’s what lured them to Judea in the first place. God shone a great star before the magi, a tantalizing beacon they couldn’t refuse. Yet they sought it not for the star itself, but for what they hoped lay at the end—except, they didn’t know how to get there. The star led them into Judea. These men of knowledge and influence went to the place of power where they assumed a king would be born. They went to Jerusalem, and made an inquiry that struck terror in Herod’s heart. As far as Herod was concerned, the Jews would have only one king and he was it. But even Herod couldn’t tell them where the child was to be born. So he called the chief priests and scribes and asked them where the Messiah was to be born—at Bethlehem.

At Bethlehem, the unlikeliest of places! It’s no wonder the Magi went to Jerusalem first. It’s the much more obvious place to find a king. The roads would have been better, more people would have been going that way, to Jerusalem. But when they got there, they received a fuller, a brighter revelation than what they saw in the star. Holy Scripture said, "go to Bethlehem." So they did, and found the king. But think of their surprise at seeing him! No royal attendants or luxurious clothes, a child born to obviously common parents. We can imagine these dignitaries entering the lowly places of Bethlehem carrying treasures well beyond the means of the townspeople. They don’t seem to fit there, in Bethlehem, kneeling with all their wealth before a child not even weaned from his mother, a child with no obvious signs of kingship about him. But that’s where they go and find their journey’s end, for the one before whom they kneel is not just a child, but the child; not just an end to one of many journeys; but the end of all journeys.

The end of their journey and all journeys is Jesus. When the magi come to Bethlehem astrology bows to the Bible and they themselves bend the knee to Christ. I suppose they could have taken one look at the child, his surroundings, his mother, and decided they were mistaken. But these foreigners, these non-Jews, these ardent seekers knelt down and worshiped, overwhelmed with joy.

Here in this gospel we call the "most Jewish," the gospel littered with Hebrew scriptures fulfilled by the Christ, Matthew makes it clear that this new born messiah is savior not only of Israel, but of all people. The magi are in and out of Matthew’s narrative in twelve short verses, but their act of homage resounds to the end of the story. They’re early fulfillment of that great commission, "go and make disciples of all nations" (Mt. 28:19). Jesus hadn’t spoken a word, and the nations were bowed before him.

What Matthew has in mind with these wise men isn’t just three kings, but three billion—a world full of people finding the end of their search at the foot of Jesus. Matthew foresees throngs coming from every walk of life to find fulfillment of their every desire in this one who came to ease burdens and give rest to souls. In the coming of Christ, the doors of the kingdom are flung open to all who would bend the knee to Jesus. A new covenant is made with those whose journey would be ever toward the divine Son who meets even the desires we don’t know we seek.

It’s this Lord of the nations who comes to us at the Table. Here we’re given food for the journey—bread, wine, Christ himself in the Spirit. Here is where our searching finds its end. With bread and wine on our tongue and sisters and brothers at our side, we’re brought into God’s vision of the day when we God-desiring people would stop running after more money, more stuff, more sex, more power, more bombs, more guns, more you name it. Christ sets for us a Table that speaks of the day when our oft misguided search for life would end in the presence of the Lord who gives it, of the day when we simply kneel before the king who overwhelms with joy.

Sometimes during our 8:30 celebration Lord’s Supper my mind gets caught up in a prayerful fantasy. The saints of God come down our aisle to receive the sacrament, and I envision the line stretching out the sanctuary, down Main St., across I-70, over hills and oceans and continents, masses of humanity moving toward their journey’s end. I see in that line children and parents, youth and older people, folks in wheel chairs and on crutches, presidents of nations and the poorest of the poor. They’re all coming to the Table. I see warring nations, those who are jobless, people with diseases, and too many folks with smiling mouths but weeping souls. They’re searchers all of them, and they want to meet Jesus. I see them flocking to the Table, as my imagination prays what it means that we are the one body of Christ, the church on its way to redemption, disciples of Jesus trying to figure out what it means to live in his name with all the longings have and the burdens we carry. They’re streaming toward the light, coming to the Christ at the end of life’s tunnel.

When we come to the Table we receive food for the journey. We stop along the way for the meal that not only remembers our end, not only looks forward to it, but actually meets him here and now to feed on his resurrection life. We come to him as one and many, each of us in a different places on the sojourn of faith, but the promise to all is the same: "My body for you; my blood for you; I am with you always, to the end of the age."

I bet you know someone that needs to know this. Maybe it’s you yourself. I’m sure each of us knows someone that needs to know, that the end of every search—the fulfillment of every longing—that the journey’s end is Jesus.