Trivial Pursuit

First Lesson: Isaiah 60: 1-6
Responsive Reading: Psalm 72: 1-7, 10-14
Second Lesson: Ephesians 3: 1-12
​Gospel Lesson: Matthew 2: 1-12

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Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
​
Let me begin by asking everyone here a hypothetical question.  “Would you rather have the right directions to the wrong destination or the wrong directions to the right destination?”
Would you rather have the perfect map or the perfect GPS take you to the middle of a traffic jam to a place you discover you don’t need to be or would you rather end up in the right place by what seems to be good luck?

Now let me continue with a story, on Christmas Eve when my family gathered we sat down to play a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Now I was in for a challenge. My Mom’s traveled and volunteered throughout the world, read more books than everybody else I know, she worked for many years as a librarian and possess a Master’s in Education.
My sister is a lawyer; she’ll occasionally recommend books for me.  The reading is so tedious that stuff she has described to me as “easy reads”, I seemingly need to take breaks every ten minutes from mental exhaustion.

My Dad is thirty years older; when we go to museums, they need to kick him out upon closing because he reads absolutely everything upon the wall. 

I was giving away vast amounts of knowledge and life experience in most of the categories: geography, history, arts, and literature. 

Despite being an underdog heading into the game, I did manage to pull the upset!  Now I don’t say this to brag, because in the majority of the categories in which I was asked, I had no idea of the answer.  But how I won was through the process of elimination in true/false, multiple choices, and what would be considered slightly “educated” albeit “lucky” guesses. 

But as the Carlson Family Trivial Pursuit game reminds us; the thing is it sometimes nothing more than pure “luck” that can be the source of one’s greatest blessings in life.

Today’s Gospel lesson tells us another similar story[1].  Today we hear a story about individuals who end up in the presence of Our Lord by nothing more than pure chance.  Men, who every one first hearing the story in Jesus’ day would ask: “What exactly are they doing there[2]?”

Today’s Gospel lesson concerns the visit of the “wise men,” “kings” or “Magi” to visit young Jesus. 

Now despite singing “We Three Kings” earlier, there is no evidence that these men were kings within our scripture lesson. The speculation about these men being “kings” only arose within later Church tradition.
As for being wise men, this is also debatable.  The visitors’ most prominent act involves going to the current King in Herod asking him where they could find his replacement.

They could not have made a less wise move.  You see Herod had already killed multiple sons and a wife just at the mere suspicion that they were thinking of replacing Herod as King[3].   Now the visitors were confirming Herod’s paranoia.  Herod gets so jealous after the wise men’s visit about this “birth” of the “new king,” he proceeds to have all baby boys born in Bethlehem less than two years old killed.  So considering all this “wise men” is the worst name for Jesus’ unexpected visitors.

The third name for these gentlemen is “Magi.” Now, who exactly are “Magi?” Magi appear in two old stories within the New Testament.  In Acts 8, Simon the Magi also known as the Simon the Sorcerer is stated as one who is opposing Jesus’ earliest followers[4]. In Acts 13, Elymas the Magi who is opposing Paul and Barnabas preaching about Jesus on Cyprus[5]. 

Now the word “Magi” comes from the same root word as “Magician’.  Within Jesus’ day “Magi” tended to work with things like witchcraft, fortune telling, and especially “astrology[6].” Magi were often referred to as “wise-men” because they would study these things as a way to understand spiritual truth.    These were the types of things that no good “religious” person of Jesus’ day that gathered every Sabbath within the Temple would involve themselves.

Now from where did the Magi come? All we can say for sure is they came from someplace east of Jerusalem such as Arabia or Persia.  In all probability, they were not “Jewish” like everyone else attending the Birth of Jesus as they proclaimed their wishes to see “The King of the Jews.” 

But the Magi did know enough about both the scriptures and astronomy to realize the Star of Bethlehem as giving witness to the Messiah’s birth. 

So how do the Magi come upon this scene?  Let me throw out a theory, six hundred years before the Birth of Jesus.  The Babylonians conquered the Jewish homeland. The Jewish people were then thrown out of their homes and forced to live as servants within Babylon. During this time though, one man with great faith rose to prominence in Babylon.   The man was Daniel.  Daniel’s faith was so great that he survived one night within the Lion’s Den[7]. 

Why do I mention this- Let me read Daniel 2:48:
“Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men (or Magi) of Babylon.”

Daniel’s presence within Babylon would perhaps explain why these Magi would possibly care so much about the birth of a baby in a foreign land, hundreds of miles away, hundreds of years later.

So the Magi follow a star end up in Jerusalem, in the presence of King Herod.  They figured the big city in the presence of Government and religious big shots was the place where the “King of the Jews” would be born.  No one not even the religious authorities in the Chief Priests and the Scribes knew of Jesus’ birth until the Magi’s visit.
 
The Chief Priests were able to remind the Magi of the prophet Micah’s promise that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  Only for as soon as the Magi left Jerusalem, the star leading to their destination reappeared bringing them to the very house where Christ was staying. 

 Now here’s the remarkable thing about the Magi when they appear at Christ’s door-step, they see a humble home, seemingly not one belonging to the type of King they traveled hundreds of miles to worship in a foreign land[8]. 

None of this ultimately mattered in the end to the Magi. They were instead overjoyed! They instinctively understood the promise of the long-awaited messiah!   They bowed down to worship him! They presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh[9].  The visit of the Magi ultimately pointed the way to the purpose of the Messiah who had been born.  He was born to save those from far outside the nation of Israel and far from outside the religious structure of his day. 

The Magi might have seemed unlikely to end up as central figures in the story of Jesus birth, but they remind us that even being wrong about directions to the right destination can work out in the end.  The Christ child can bless the most winding and broken of roads. 

To further illustrate the story of the Magi, let me close with one final story as told by Tim Zingale.

Elroy.T. Higgenboom was a seeming nobody from Indianapolis, Indiana[10].   Elroy was in many ways like Sid Hartman describing every one of fame and influence as “his, close, personal friend.” Elroy though seemed to be nothing more than the guy in the coffee shop continually shooting his mouth off and telling all his stories.  No one has ever seen Elroy with any of his supposed famous friends.

Well one day, Elroy’s friend who I’ll call Leonard got tired of hearing all of Elroy’s stories.  He said, “Hey Elroy, if you know so many famous people why don’t you call the mayor of Indianapolis and invite him to lunch.” Leonard even handed Elroy the Mayor’s phone-number[11].  Everyone who heard this conversation thought Elroy was about to look like a fool.  Only for Elroy to tell Leonard to “go ahead.”  Leonard dials the number, the Mayor’s secretary answers, and she relays Elroy’s lunch offer to the Mayor, only for Leonard’s jaw to drop as he hears that “The Mayor would love to catch up and have lunch with Elroy.”

Leonard gets mad at this point, figuring it all to be a fluke.  He invites Elroy to Washington D.C. where a parade was taking place. The star of the parade was President John F. Kennedy.  President Kennedy sees Elroy and shouts out “Hey Elroy how’s everything in Indianapolis[12].” Leonard was so mad that he could barely speak at this point!

Leonard though was determined to expose Elroy once and for all.  So he decides to take Elroy to the Vatican to see his supposed close, personal friend the Pope.  Leonard accidentally loses Elroy in the crowd.  Only to look a short time later at the balcony where the Pope was standing to shaking hands with good friend Elroy T Higgenboom of Indianapolis, Indiana[13]. 

How did Elroy? T. Higgenboom know any of these people?  The answer doesn’t matter in the end.  How did I manage to win at Trivial Pursuit without knowing any of the answers?  Having the right guesses as to the answers can be more valuable than how you got them.  How do the Magi figure into the story of Christ’s birth? No one expected them to be there. No one expected the King of the Jews to be “born” for non-Jews such as them, yet here we are continually in the presence of the Christ child.  That’s what matters as we begin this Epiphany season. I would indeed rather have the wrong directions if it ultimately led me to the right destination of our Savior.
 Amen
 
 
 


[1] Matthew 2:1-12
[2] Stier, Leon. “The Wise (?) Men (part one of two).” Email Meditations. 27.Dec.2014. Web. Dec.29.2018.
[3] Stier, Leon. “The Wise (?) Men (part one of two).” Email Meditations.
[4] Acts 8:9-25
[5] Acts 13:8-12.
[6] Stier, Leon. “The Wise (?) Men (part one of two).” Email Meditations.
[7] Habben, Daniel. “Follow In The Wisemen's Footsteps.” Sermon Central. 9.Jan.2007. Web. Dec.30.2018. 
[8] Habben, Daniel. “Follow In The Wisemen's Footsteps.” Sermon Central.
[9] Matthew 2:11.
[10] Zingale, Tim. “Who Did Jesus Come For.” Sermon Central. 11.Jan.2002. Web. Dec.29.2018. 
[11] Zingale, Tim. “Who Did Jesus Come For.” Sermon Central.
[12] Zingale, Tim. “Who Did Jesus Come For.” Sermon Central.
[13] Zingale, Tim. “Who Did Jesus Come For.” Sermon Central.