Seekers

I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. It was a long time ago, but I can still remember it all: the journey, Herod, the house, the child. There are days when I still can’t believe we really did it, really actually saw the child, especially since we had such a hard time finding him. But it was all worth it. My life has never been the same since. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

We were astrologers. Well, I was really an apprentice, but I was far enough along that my master slipped me into the travelling party. We lived in Persepolis, in the eastern part of the Persian Empire. We were Zoroastrians at that time. As astrologers, we diligently studied the skies. We read all the old treatises and knew exactly where all the stars, comets, and galaxies were. We knew how the Sumerians, the Greeks, and the Buddhists had mapped out the constellations. About that time, we’d had some inkling that some kind of shift or transformation was about to take place in the cosmos, but no one was sure what it was, or how we would know that it had happened.

One night my master came running in from the observation room. “The House of the Jews,” he shouted, “It’s in the house of the Jews!” “What is, master?” I asked. “It’s a star I’ve never seen before in that constellation,” he shouted. “Call the others!” After the others had studied the House of the Jews, they tentatively agreed that there seemed to be a new star there. None of them could say for sure the meaning of such a sign. My master, though, was sure that this star was the sign of the transformation we had been expecting. He said, “I feel a stirring, deep down. Some of us most go to Jerusalem, to the center of the land of the Jews and find out what this star means.” Most of the others looked at my master doubtfully. Jerusalem? Travel a thousand miles just because you think you see a new star?

My master was determined. He doggedly pursued his friends, and finally a few other astrologers agreed to go with him. They had to raise funds for the trip. They had to buy the provisions and equipment. They had to arrange for the camels and the camel drivers. My master had to get a letter of introduction to the government in Jerusalem. Finally, we were able to leave Persepolis. It should have taken us about two months to get to Jerusalem. Even though my master had maps, we got lost several times. Some of the roads were washed out. The camels got sick, and one even died. And the camel drivers demanded that we spend longer than just one night whenever we stopped at a caravanserai. And, of course, none of us knew exactly where we were going. My master had figured out that we were looking for “the king of the Jews,” but he had no idea where this king might actually be.

At last we reached Jerusalem. We took our letters of introduction to Herod’s palace. We knew that Herod was an evil king – people said he had actually murdered members of his own family – but we asked for an audience with him anyway. My master asked him point blank, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” Herod and his courtiers went white. Herod actually trembled. Then he called for his priestly advisors. His voice shook as he asked them what Scripture had foretold about the birth of the Messiah. “Bethlehem,” they said, “the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem.” With that, Herod sent us on our way, reminding us to come back and let him know where this child was, so that he too could worship him. I was skeptical. Herod had called himself the “king of the Jews.” Would he really let someone else, even a child, usurp his power?

Although Bethlehem was only six miles away from Herod’s palace, again we got lost. We couldn’t find the right gate out of the city. When we got to Bethlehem we wandered around for a while. Then we reached a small house on the street of the carpenters. “This is it!” my master shouted. “Are you sure?” the others said. “This little house? We thought we were looking for another king.” My master gingerly knocked. I held my breath. A man ushered us in. And there he was, the most beautiful child I had ever seen, a toddler, maybe eighteen months old or so, sitting on his mother’s lap. Seeing us, he leapt up and ran to us. He laughed and crowed and opened his arms to welcome us. We were awe-struck. For several minutes we couldn’t do anything but kneel there gazing at him. Then he laughed some more. We unfroze and began to unpack our bags and pull out the gifts we had carefully carried all the way from Persepolis, gold, incense and myrrh. Even now, I wonder how my master actually found the child. I wonder if the child knew who we were. The gifts we had brought were what one would bring to a new king, but I wonder what his mother thought when she saw them.

We found a place to stay for a few days. Then we knew it was time to go back. The night before we were to leave my master had a dream. “We’re not going back to Herod,” he said, “that old fox is up to no good.” My master consulted his maps and figured out how to get back to Persia without going through Jerusalem. Later, I shuddered as I heard that Herod, instead of worshipping the holy child, had ordered his soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger. “Don’t worry,” said my master. “Herod didn’t find him. His parents had already taken him to safety in Egypt.”

I’m an old man now. I have children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. They are all wonderful people. But something about that child made him more wonderful than any other child I’ve ever known. And my life changed forever the day I saw him. I knew myself as loved and accepted by God in a way I had never known before. I knew that the covenant God had made with the Jews now included all people, even us Zoroastrians. How grateful I am that my master saw that miraculous sign and persuaded us all to join him on that wondrous journey.

Only Matthew tells us this story. And what a wonderful story it is. How can it be that foreigners, people from Iran, a country from which the U.S. is currently estranged, were the first to sense the true identity of the holy child? Could it be that God’s revelations sometimes come to outsiders, not only to faithful Christians or Jews? Is it possible that God’s revelations even come to our enemies or to those we think undeserving of God’s love? How could it be that the Persian astrologers were led not by Scripture, but by a celestial phenomenon? Could it be that God speaks through the non-human world as well as through the human world? Could it be that birds and fish and bears and deer, even our own companion animals, reveal something to us of God? And how could it be that God spoke to the astrologers through dreams? Could God be speaking to us too through our dreams, through our hopes, wishes, fears, and joys?

How could it be that the astrologers trusted God to lead them back home by an alternate route? As 2015 begins, many of us are not where we thought we might be. Perhaps unexpected changes have occurred in our families, in our health, and in our relationships. Perhaps someone has lost a loved one or been forced to change living arrangements. Perhaps good things have happened. Perhaps we’ve changed jobs, joined a new church community, or taken on new roles. Perhaps we have a deeper sense of God’s love for us. At the very least, by virtue of being a year older, we are travelling by a different road than we travelled last year. Even so, like the Persian astrologers we too can trust God to continue to reveal Godself to us and to lead us on the challenging alternate roads of our lives.

Laura Sumner Truax reminds us that, “The Magi are traveling companions for us in our information-rich age and especially good for us to emulate as we put one year to bed and once again hold out hope for the new one.”1 We may think we know where we are headed, but just as 2014 took many of us in new directions, so will 2015. And as we set forth, we may not have any better information than the astrologers. Even though we have diligently read the Bible, faithfully worshipped, and fervently prayed, we still may have only a dim sense of who God is and what God desires for us. We still may not know exactly where God is leading us. We still may get stuck or discouraged and wonder who can give us accurate directions. We still may encounter detours and alternate routes, even to return home. We still may have to endure losing companions along the way.

Here is the good news: God is with us. Wherever we are on our spiritual journey, beginner, wanderer, wonderer, or old soul, God is with us. God will lead us, sustain us, and bring us home. And we can be sure that, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

1. “Reflections on the Lectionary,” Christian Century, 130, 26, Dec. 25, 2013, p. 19.