All the Wrong People--January 6, 2020

All the Wrong People--January 6, 2019

"In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, 'Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at his rising, and have come to pay him homage'." [Matthew 2:1-2]

All the wrong people come to Jesus.

Well, maybe that's how it looks from one vantage point at least.  The visitors whom Matthew says have come "from the East," these ones he called "magi," are mysterious and slippery characters.  Nobody is sure who they were or where they came from.  Almost certainly they were NOT kings, despite what our hymns say, but they may well have had positions in palaces as royal advisors.  The word "magi" goes back to the old Persian (modern-day Iran--yes, Iran) word for astrologers in the Zoroastrian religion, but it's also possible that they were dignitaries from some other kingdom as well.  We don't know how many of them there were (three gifts are mentioned later, but not three givers--the claims of most Christmas pageant scripts notwithstanding), and we don't know for sure how long it took them to get where they were going.

But beyond the long list of things we don't know about them, the little that we do know makes them all wrong for the moment.  They are not Jewish--that much is certain. So they're the "wrong" nationality. And related to that, they are the "wrong" religion, and the Hebrew Scriptures have some pretty strict commandments against consulting the stars and planets for answers, even as a side hobby.  These guys are would-be wizards, basically, who appear out of nowhere (so we don't know if they were good and well-behaved rule-followers) and who disappear after this story never to be mentioned again (so we have no indication that they ever came back to follow the adult Jesus or get baptized or pray to make Jesus their personal lord and savior, or anything).  In short, they are outsiders who are drawn to Jesus... but they stay outsiders.  They are pagan foreigner, rather than devout children of Israel.  And yet... there is a place for them to find the child.  And yet... they are included.

By comparison, Luke's telling of the story at least has some well-deserving good faithful Israelites getting to see the child.  There's Simeon and Anna in the temple, both of whom had been waiting all their lives long to get to see the promised Messiah.  They had both devoted their whole lives to watching and waiting and praying for this child.  And here, in Matthew's storytelling, there's a bunch of foreigners who get to cut to the front of the line and see the Messiah, too, even though they didn't know where they should be looking and they weren't followers of Israel's God.  The magi are the wrong ones to get to be the first to lay eyes on the Jewish Messiah... and yet, as Matthew gives it to us, that is exactly whom God draws.  Outsiders.  Foreigners.  Wild-eyed wizards who believed in astrology and lucky numbers and, who knows, maybe even rabbit's feet and four-leafed clovers, too.  But they are included as well.  God has a way of gathering in all the "wrong" people.

And maybe that's just it.  

The whole point of the Gospel, the whole point of the coming of Jesus, is how God pulls in everybody in order to bring everybody--everybody--to life.  The insiders and outsiders alike.  The devout and the ungodly. The "right" ones and the "wrong" ones. Without regard for worthiness or faithfulness. Everybody is drawn in close.

Even wild-eyed wizards.  Even you and me.

Lord Jesus, pulls us close, and use us to draw others close to you, too.