The Journey [Christmas 2 - Matthew 2:1-12]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Matthew 2:1-12

The Journey

I don’t really like the journey.  Don’t get me wrong: I like traveling, but I like traveling because I love the destination – arriving and exploring, seeing new places, immersing myself in the experience.  I love all of that stuff.  I just do not enjoy the getting there.  I don’t really enjoy driving.  I don’t really like air travel – especially having to arrive early and wait around at the airport.  My wife talked me into taking a train trip to New York once when we lived in Toledo; it was pretty, in parts, but a lot of the scenery was boring and overall that train was just too slow for my taste.  I don’t enjoy the journey – which I realize is one of the least Episcopalian things I could ever say.  We’re always talking about how it is all about the journey.  And, spiritually, I totally agree; practically, though, I’m all about checking off those boxes.  I make task lists for my day off.  Nothing much gets done on the journey.  And so, I don’t really like the journey.

When I do have to make a journey – big or small – I need to feel like the journey is worth my time.  So, when I have a meeting in Denver, which occurs more often than I like, I try to stack my appointments, so that I feel like the drive was worth it.  If I am going to make that drive, I want to be at the Bishop’s Office for at least as much time as I spent in my car getting there and back – so at least three hours of productive meetings in Denver are a must.  Otherwise I feel like I have wasted my time – which, as you can probably tell by now, is not something I particularly enjoy.

And so, you probably will not be surprised to discover, I have a difficult time relating to the Magi.  They traveled an awfully long way, across boring deserts and through backwater villages, to drop off a few baby shower gifts. 

Their extensive travel plans were initiated by a very strange heavenly body – what they are calling a star.  These wise men from the East observed this mysterious star at its rising and arrived at the conclusion that its rising marked a significant human birth.  And so they decide, I guess, that they should probably drop by that unknown baby’s nursery.  And, you know, since they are going to stop in anyway, why not bring some expensive gifts.  And so they drop everything and embark on a journey – one indefinite in length and purpose.  All of which leads me to conclude that I would not have been a good fit in that club. 

They were guided on this long and uncertain journey by that new star, the one that just sort of popped up – you know, like stars do.  Now, I am aware that traveling by star was fairly common in the ancient world.  I understand that the constellations guided ancient mariners as they journeyed across the salty seas.  But this was a little different.  Star charts work because the position of the stars in the sky is generally predictable.  The Magi were not guided by the stars; they were guided by a star – a very peculiar star.  This star, the one they were planning to blindly follow across the known world, was on the move, hovering in the sky, in starts and stops, preceding their caravan.  Not your typical star.  

And, it is worth noting that, as far as stars go, this particular guiding light tended to meander a bit.  On the way to the special baby, it even decided to add a stop.  It led the wise men to a palace, which typically could be a nice diversion on road trip, a palace, one of the “must see” destinations in the region.  But in this story it seems the star stopped at the palace, not for the sights, but so that these wise men could have an awkward conversation with a king.  Not only was the journey long and uncertain, tedious and costly, it was weird.  It was a weird journey.

And for what?  To see a strange baby?  To deliver a few gifts?  Well, yes.  And then to just turn around and go home.  I’m not sure I would drive to Denver to see a random baby and drop off a few gifts.  And I like babies.  That this journey ever happened is a miracle.

Of course, this was no ordinary baby.  Not only was the journey a miracle, so was the child.  We know now that the long journey was an infinitely small price to pay to glimpse the face of Jesus.  But they, the Magi, they knew nothing of the destination.  They had no idea where the star would stop or what exactly they would find when they arrived.  But they went.  They picked up and followed that wandering star.    

The Magi, and their journey, have captivated spiritual imaginations for centuries, inspiring song and poetry.  They have acquired names and faces over the years.  They have been cast in porcelain countless times.  Those tiny figurines spend the twelve days of the Christmas season being moved slowly across living rooms and churches by tiny fingers, growing ever closer to their destination.  And then, on the day they finally arrive, they are returned to the place from whence they came, a closet or an attic, maybe wrapped in old newspaper, until the star reappears next Christmas and they again begin their journey.    

And so most of their time is spent on the journey.  And very little having arrived.  And so while I find very few of the details of this strange story personally relatable, this I do understand. 

This Bible telling of the story hits the highlights.  It talks of palaces and jealous kings and a tiny savior.  But those were just fugacious moments in the context of a much larger journey – a journey in which the Magi spent more time gazing at sandy expanses then they did on the face of Christ.  And that is exactly what life is like.  There are, along the way, special moments, events that define our lives: baptisms, graduations, a marriage, the birth of a child.  But if you add them together, stack them up, you will realize that they are just fleeting moments in the context of a much larger journey – a journey on which much more time will be spent sleeping and driving and playing games on your phone.  Most of your journey will be unremarkable.

Which makes those beautiful moments all of the more precious.  Occasionally, a star will rise before you – pop up, you know, like stars do.  And, it will lead, perhaps in starts and stops, to a glimpse of something transformative, something that forever redefines your journey, something that makes it all worth it, something we might call an Epiphany.  And though the glimpse will prove elusive, no more than a passing moment in the long span of life, it will burrow into your heart and live there forever.  And you will then find you check the skies with a bit more regularity, knowing that God has sprinkled this world with enough magic to make the journey worth it.