The Story of the Magi Is an Invitation. Will We Show Up?

The Magi finally appeared in nativity scenes over the weekend. Soon, if not already, they’ll be packed and stored away until next year’s Epiphany, which is a shame. These late arrivers are some of the most provocative, prophetic, and polarizing figures in the Christmas story, and we need to learn their lessons and carry them forward.

By the time they arrive, the story is already radical and deeply unsettling: A long-awaited child has been born to ordinary parents in humble circumstances. He enters the world not in a castle or a mansion, but a manger.

The first invited guests aren’t socially dignified, politically powerful, or religiously zealous. Instead, the angels’ invitation is heard by shepherds from the bottom of their social, religious, and economic orders.

The rich, the powerful, and the pious? They don’t even hear the invitation.

Enter the Magi, who take the story to a whole different level and show us what it means to live in this newborn’s spirit.

They’re strangers from a different nation, different culture, different ethnic background. They cross borders to follow a light. They head for the most logical place. They assume the mighty king must know what this means, so they visit the castle first.

The king is oblivious. So are his religious advisers. Sure, they know scripture and prophecy, but they know nothing of the actual Jesus. So the king sends the Magi on their way and orders them to return after finding the child.

They follow the light to a shocking, unexpected, and deeply unsettling place. The light leads them to a front-and-center spot in the Christmas story while the powerful and observant are left behind.

Then, the story really gets interesting.

The Magi are legally obligated to follow the king’s commands while they’re in his land. In an act of civil disobedience, they refuse the unjust command and go home by another route.

Enraged that he didn’t get things his way, the king issues a directive that will cause harm. Mary and Joseph find themselves thrust into the role of refugees, fleeing danger and crossing a border to save their child’s life.

They enter a foreign land uninvited, relying upon the kindness of strangers of a different nation, different culture, different religion to keep them alive.

This story takes aim on our notions of nationalism and religious superiority. It tears down the theological, social, and political walls we try to build between ourselves and others who are different.

And it challenges us to do the same.

The story didn’t end 2,000 years ago. It plays out in our world today in so many familiar ways. And we, too, are invited to have a role in the story just like the Magi.

Will we play our parts and fulfill our roles?

Do we have the courage to follow the light to places we would have never considered? Or will we ignore its summons and choose to remain in the security of our narrow ideologies?

Can we allow our notions of insiders and outsiders get turned upside-down? Or will we continue to insist that only some people are deserving of God’s love and our own?

Will we follow the Magi’s example and refuse to cooperate with leaders' edicts that harm any child of God? Or will we rationalize our cooperation and ignore the evil we're bringing into the world?

Can we see Jesus in the face of every poor person and every refugee who knows what it’s like to live in fear and rely on the kindness of strangers?

Or will we choose instead to fill the role of the socially privileged and religiously observant people who never hear the angels’ summons and refuse to leave our comfort zones to visit a manger and be transformed by its shocking message?

Each of us is invited to come to the manger and take our place in the ongoing story along with the outcasts, aliens, and border crossers who got it started. Whether we show up is up to each of us.