The Christmas Jesus #3: Subjects of a New King

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham... Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah...

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. ‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘for this is what the prophet has written:

‘“But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for out of you will come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.”’

Matthew 1:1, 17 and 2:1-5

It seems somehow appropriate to be writing this the day after the General Election – regardless of what we think about the outcome this time. My Christian friends who work in politics tell me it’s all too easy to say that ‘Christ is King’ as a kind of slogan – even as an excuse for lack of engagement with issues in society, a way of retreating into our Christian caves. Perhaps so. Of course, that doesn’t stop it being true: Christ is King.

In fact, the very first verse of the New Testament makes it clear he is ‘the Messiah the son of David’. And Jesus’ kingship is written large across the opening chapters of Matthew’s gospel.

For instance, Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy through the rise of the monarchy in king David, its loss in the exile, and its restoration in Jesus the Messiah. Matthew’s division of Jesus’ family tree into three groups of 14 may have prompted Jewish readers to think of the numerical value of the name ‘David’ in Hebrew, which is 14. Even the very arrangement of the genealogy emphasises Jesus’ kingship!

Matthew also reminds us of the contrast between Jesus, who has been ‘born king of the Jews’ (2:1), and Herod, who is currently installed as a puppet king of the Romans. Herod somehow senses that Jesus represents a rule that ultimately threatens his own. Indeed, as the Scriptures make clear, it’s the one born in Bethlehem who is the legitimate king, the one who would shepherd Israel.

And it becomes clear as the story progresses that this ‘son of David’ will not defeat his enemies with military might or political power. Nor will he rule over a particular geographical territory or ethnic group. This king will take away the sins of his people. His throne will be a cross. His kingdom will include people from all nations. His rule will embrace all things.

If anything, that all-embracing rule provides the biggest motivation of all not to withdraw now that the General Election is over. Precisely because Christ is King, whatever realm the Lord has placed us in – whatever family, street, job, career, course, or hobby – we can bear fruit in it, as we build relationships, seek justice, make a gracious stand for truth, and witness to the gospel. And we do so as subjects of the king, called to represent and reflect the beauty of his rule in all the earth.

Of Astrologers, Magicians, and Bungling Sorcerers

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. This is a lightly-edited re-run of a piece first written and published back in 2010.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’

Matthew 2:1-2

The 12th day of Christmas falls on 6 January this year. In the Christian calendar the day is known as Epiphany, marking the visit to the young Jesus by... well, by whom?

We sometimes sing ‘We three kings of Orient are’. But Matthew calls them ‘Magi’, not kings. Magi were a number of things, but they were certainly not kings. Nor, probably, should we think of them as ‘wise men’.

By the first century, the term ‘Magi’ referred to astronomers, fortune-tellers, or star-gazers. So, think ‘magicians’. Think horoscope fanatics. Think those who claim to tell the future by reading stars, tea leaves, and chicken gizzards. In the Bible, think of the magicians in Egypt at the time of Moses, or the interpreters of dreams in the book of Daniel, or Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8.

So, for an early reader of Matthew’s gospel, the Magi aren’t just Gentiles (significant though that is); they represent the height of Gentile idolatry and religious wizardry. But it’s these star-gazing, horoscope-writing, would-be magicians who are the heroes in the story. They shouldn’t be there. They don’t worship the right God or adhere to the right religion or belong to the right race. And yet they are there.

It’s possible, then (according to Mark Allan Powell, Chasing the Eastern Star, Westminster John Knox, 2001) that we should see the Magi as bungling astrologers or sorcerers – more like the Three Stooges than the Three Wise Men! They go to the wrong place. They speak to the wrong person. When they give their gifts, it’s gold, frankincense and myrrh, which were elements used in their magic. And yet, by a mysterious combination of God’s loving grace and their faithful seeking, they are there – as models of seeking Jesus, believing in Jesus, and worshipping Jesus with what they have. God used what they knew – the stars – and gave them what they didn’t know – the Scriptures – to bring them to Jesus.

The story of the Magi shows us that God revealed the truth about Jesus to a bunch of pagan fools while those who were clever enough to work it out for themselves missed out. Their story reminds us that God shows his strength in our weakness, his glory in our humility, his wisdom in our folly – to make it clear that everything comes from him and not from ourselves.

Let’s celebrate that this New Year.

Word for the Week: Of Astrologers, Magicians, and Bungling Sorcerers

The ‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’ series, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, will re-start on Monday 4 January 2010.

Meanwhile, the below Word for the Week message was sent out to subscribers this week. It’s close to a blog entry posted around this time last year, itself drawing heavily on Mark Allan Powell’s enormously helpful book, Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001).

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’
Matthew 2:1-2

At Christmas, we sometimes sing ‘We three kings of Orient are’. But Matthew calls them ‘Magi’, not kings. Magi were a number of things, but they were certainly not kings. Nor, probably, should we think of them as ‘wise men’…

By the first century, the term ‘Magi’ referred to astronomers, fortune-tellers, or star-gazers. So, think ‘magicians’. Think horoscope fanatics. Think those who claim to tell the future by reading stars, tea leaves, and chicken gizzards. In the Bible, think of the magicians in Egypt at the time of Moses, or the interpreters of dreams in the book of Daniel, or Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8.

So, for an early reader of Matthew’s gospel, the Magi aren’t just Gentiles (significant though that is); they represent the height of Gentile idolatry and religious wizardry. But it’s these star-gazing, horoscope-writing, would-be magicians who are the heroes in the story. They shouldn’t be there. They don’t worship the right God or adhere to the right religion or belong to the right race. And yet they are there.

It’s possible, then (according to Mark Allan Powell, Chasing the Eastern Star, Westminster John Knox, 2001) that we should see the Magi as bungling astrologers or sorcerers – more like the Three Stooges than the Three Wise Men! They go to the wrong place. They speak to the wrong person. When they give their gifts, it’s gold, frankincense and myrrh, which were elements used in their magic. And yet, by a mysterious combination of God’s loving grace and their faithful seeking, they are there – as models of seeking Jesus, believing in Jesus, and worshipping Jesus with what they have. God used what they knew – the stars – and gave them what they didn’t know – the Scriptures – to bring them to Jesus.

The story of the Magi shows us that God revealed the truth about Jesus to a bunch of pagan fools while those who were clever enough to work it out for themselves missed out. Their story reminds us that God shows his strength in our weakness, his glory in our humility, his wisdom in our folly – to make it clear that everything comes from him and not from ourselves.

Let’s celebrate that this Christmastime.

Mark Allan Powell on the Magi

Over the course of a few years, Mark Allan Powell published several articles on the Magi in Matthew 2:1-12:

Mark Allan Powell, ‘Neither Wise Nor Powerful: Reconsidering Matthew’s Magi in the Light of Reader Expectations’, Trinity Seminary Review 20, 1 (1998), 19-31; ‘The Magi as Wise Men: Re-examining a Basic Supposition’, New Testament Studies 46, 1 (2000), 1-20; ‘The Magi as Kings: An Adventure in Reader-Response Criticism’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 62, 3 (2000), 459-80.

The substance of this material was then incorporated into a book-length treatment:

Mark Allan Powell, Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001).

Apart from anything else, this still remains the best book to read on ‘reader-response criticism’ from a sympathetic and not-so-radical advocate; it’s engaging and fun (yes, really…), and shows how the theory works out on passages in Matthew’s gospel.

In Part 1, among other things, Powell introduces a distinction between ‘expected’ and ‘unexpected’ readings of biblical passages (rather than ‘good’ and ‘bad’, or ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ readings). Part Two asks how the ‘implied reader’ of Matthew’s gospel is expected to read, and what he or she is expected to know and believe. Part Three then offers an extended case-study on the visit of the Magi.

Contrary to most current reader expectations, Powell argues that Matthew’s first readers would be ‘expected’ to realise the Magi were servants not kings, and educated in nonsense. In fact, the story shows how God rejects kings (Herod) and the wise (the chief priests and scribes), and reveals himself to foolish Magi. It is their status as fools that qualifies them as candidates for God’s revelation.

[The following few paragraphs represent a mixture of Powell and my own ‘homiletical’ twists on his work.]

By the first century, the term ‘magi’ referred to astronomers, fortune-tellers, or star-gazers. In fact, our words ‘magic’ and ‘magician’ come from this word ‘magi’. So, they were certainly not kings, and not even respectable ‘wise men’, but more like horoscope fanatics – a practice which is condemned in the Bible. It might be more helpful to think of astrologers or magicians. In the Bible, think of the magicians in Egypt at the time of Moses, or the interpreters of dreams in the book of Daniel, or Simon the magician in Acts 8.

So, for an early reader of Matthew’s gospel, the Magi aren’t just gentiles (significant though that is); they represent the height of gentile idolatry and religious hocus-pocus. But it’s these star-gazing, horoscope-writing, would-be magicians who are the heroes in Matthew’s story! They shouldn’t be there. They don’t worship the right God. They don’t belong to the right religion or the right race. And yet they are there.

It’s possible, then, that Matthew intended the Magi to look like bungling astrologers or sorcerers, more like the Three Stooges than the Three Wise Men! They go to the wrong place. They speak to the wrong person. When they give their gifts, they give gold, frankincense and myrrh, which were elements used in their magic. And yet, by a mysterious combination of God’s loving grace and their faithful seeking, they are there – as models of seeking Jesus, believing in Jesus, and worshipping Jesus with what they have and know. God used what they knew – the star – and gave them what they perhaps didn’t know – the Scriptures – to bring them to Jesus.

The story of the Magi shows us that God revealed the truth about Jesus to a bunch of pagan fools while those who were clever enough to work it out for themselves missed it. The story of the Magi reminds us that God shows his strength in our weakness, his glory in our humility, his wisdom in our folly, to make it clear that everything comes from him and not from ourselves.