The Journey of the Magi: “I should be glad of another death…”
Wonderings:
I wonder if you’ve ever felt pressure to go along with something you didn’t feel quite right about…
I wonder if there’s something you want to guide you in this next year… not a resolution, but a point of orientation.
Reflection based on these wonderings + the readings assigned for Christmas 2 in Year A in our lectionary.
Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 84; Matthew 2:1-12.
Let us speak and listen, held in the presence of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God.
We’re going to talk a bit more about this in the coming weeks, about what it might mean that Christianity is a tradition whose central events take place in history. Not just in myth or archetype, not just in the cycle of the seasons, but on the timeline of events that shape and change the world in which we ourselves live. Matthew’s story does not take place “once upon a time,” or “long ago in a galaxy far far away,” but “In the time of King Herod.”
King Herod who is a person who actually lived and ruled Judea and some surrounding territory as the king client of the Roman Empire. The empire often worked with local powers, who understood the territory, spoke the local languages, could manage things on the ground and keep the tax revenues flowing back to Rome.
History attests that King Herod was irresponsible, petty, vindictive, jealous, lecherous, lacking in both strategy and vision, and in every way small of soul.
And it’s not hard to read between the lines of this story, to understand that Herod wanted to know where this child was, not so he could worship him, but so he could snuff out this infant rival. Herod was afraid of this little baby; afraid that he would soon challenge his own power. Because Herod thought that he was King of the Jews. King of the Judeans.
These magi, these strange wise men from the East have come following a mysterious star to visit a newborn king born, improbably, impossibly, in the muck and mud on the outskirts of a godforsaken town. For these magi to go tell Herod his whereabouts would be an act of complicity in his violent, selfish scheme.
And one of the affordances of claiming this Christian tradition as our own, this tradition whose central events take place in history, is that any time we find ourselves living in times when our leadership is irresponsible, petty, vindictive, jealous, lecherous, lacking in both strategy and vision, and in every way small of soul—we can say, well, we’ve been here before.
And these are precisely the kind of times in which the God of love is born.
The God of love who brings healing and liberation first to those who are relegated to the muck and the mire, who have been deprived of their rightful dignity as children of God. The God of love whose birth is frightening to Herod and his enablers. The God of love who deserves our homage, our devotion—and needs our protection.
But enough about Herod, and his successors. I want to think about these “magi”—wise men from the East who do not go back to Herod as they have been instructed; they decide not to collaborate, not to assist in his murderous plot. They’ve seen something in Jesus they want to keep alive. Something that stays alive in them, even as they make the long journey home.
Something that changes them, forever.
In 1927, the great 20th century poet T.S. Eliot wrote a poem called “The Journey of the Magi.” The poem is written in the first-person: we imagine it spoken by Caspar, or Balthazar, or Melchior, after they have returned to their own kingdoms, and discovered...that they don’t quite fit there anymore. Meeting Jesus has shifted something in them, and now that they’re back home, they feel...out of place.
I’m going to read the whole poem out loud in a moment. The poem can help us grapple with the reality that change is hard: if we’re honest, we often feel ambivalent about change. Sometimes it even feels like agony. To witness the birth of something truly new, we have to grieve the death of the old. To faithfully follow the star we’ve glimpsed on the horizon, we have to leave the comfort of home behind; we have to try new things we’re bad at, that make us feel foolish. And yet we would do it all again because of what we glimpsed there, in the most unexpected place.
The Journey of the Magi
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
In 1926, during a visit to Rome, T.S. Eliot had an overwhelming experience of God’s presence and grace. It was a mountaintop moment that made him viscerally aware of his vulnerability and dependence on God. Like the wise man in this poem, he knew that somehow he had been deeply changed. But he also went home and went right back to his old life. Eliot discovered that, for all its power, his mountaintop moment hadn’t made a dent in his day-to-day habits. There was a part of himself that had tentatively surrendered to God, and he prayed daily for that humble surrender to be made more real—but then he promptly walked out into the world in his pinstripe suit and his bowler hat as “T.S. Eliot, revered poet and critic.” The smooth, self-possessed sophisticate who was fully in charge of his own life. Who didn’t need God, or anyone else for help, thank you very much. Whose pride had become a prison.
There’s a lot about T.S. Eliot that I don’t admire, but in this Christmas season, I can relate to his stuckness, and I’m moved every time by the way his poem gives voice to the desire to surrender to what called him through it, beyond it. Every year, Christmas for me is a powerful experience of God’s boundless desire for deeper relationship with us. “For God so loved the world…” God sent God’s Son to walk among us and show us once and for all that there is nowhere God will not go with us, no limits to God’s love. And yet most years I often don’t know how to integrate the stirrings in my soul into my “normal” life. A day or two goes by and I discover that I’ve rolled right back into my well-worn grooves where there isn’t much room for Emmanuel.
So here at the hinge between the old and the new year, between holiday break and the work-week, I invite you again into a posture of wondering…
Thinking with these magi, let’s take a moment to reflect on what we’ve been through; what no longer fits; what we’re ready to leave behind; what we’ve learned, and want to hold onto; what we’re still seeking. I’m going to ask three questions, and each time, I’m going to give you a whole minute: 60 seconds of silence to reflect; maybe you want to jot something down, to make it more real for yourself.
I. As road-trips go, the journey of the magi was hardly a barrel of laughs. In the first part of Eliot’s poem, this wise man recounts moments of frustration, regret, exhaustion and self-doubt. The camels refused to move; their guides abandoned them; there was no place to stay; the townspeople were unfriendly. “At the end we preferred to travel all night, / Sleeping in snatches:” at the end, they were just trying to get it over with, wondering if the whole journey “was all folly.”
Maybe some of these feelings resonate with you, as you look back on the long journey of 2025? Look back: when did you feel stressed, discouraged, or overwhelmed? When did you say “this is not what I signed up for!”
II. In the second part of the poem, we sense that the travellers are getting close to what they are looking for—but when they arrive, it’s not quite up to their expectations. This wealthy wise man is used to palaces and finery, and he gives this nativity scene a 2-star review: “it was (you might say) satisfactory.” And yet in that place he sees something that changes him forever. He doesn’t describe it, but we know what it was: Emmanuel, God with us.
Where in this year did you find a blessing in an unexpected place? When did God surprise you?
III. At the end of the poem it becomes clear that this wise man is looking back on that first Christmas as a journey long past. He’s had time to reflect. And we learn that since witnessing the Birth of Christ, he’s never felt at home in his own kingdom; he no longer fits in with his neighbors, the people living happily in “the old dispensation.” There is hard and bitter grief here: he describes the change in him as “like Death, our death.” There’s no undoing it. And yet he would gladly do it all again to catch another glimpse of the Christ child—to be drawn even deeper into the presence of God.
It’s hard to think about being glad about death, even as a metaphor. But as you look ahead to the new year, what parts of your life no longer fit after your journey through the year behind us, after your journey through the dark of Advent to the light of Christ? Where are you no longer at home? What are you grieving, knowing that you need to leave it behind?
One more question, looping back to the wondering we sat with at the start of our service.
What is the promise that keeps you going? What’s that star on your horizon? And what’s one concrete step that you can take to continue your journey, seeking after the life and love that God promises us, in Jesus?
Will you pray with me?
Incarnate God, Emmanuel: for so much of this year we have felt lost and uncertain, frustrated and foolish. So much has been taken from us; there have been times we felt you abandoned us, too. And in the midst of all of it, we have glimpsed you out of the corner of our eye; you have come near to us in ways we did not expect.
As we take our next step forward in this cold, winter journey, help us lay down the burdens that no longer serve us; help us lean on each other; help us grow into the people you are calling us to be, even when it hurts. Help us to keep following the star that promises a new kingdom of justice and joy for us, and for all your children.
Amen.
