Last Christmas, our six-year-old grandson, Emmett, stayed overnight at our house. He brought along his Toniebox, a music listening device for kids. This is how it works: Emmett places a plastic action figure from the Tonie collection on top of a cube-shaped speaker and the device then plays songs associated with that action figure. Like "Let It Go" sung by Elsa from Frozen. Or Peso's healing song from The Octonauts. Some Tonie figures allow you to download custom content onto a generic piece – a monster, superhero, fairy, or pirate.
When we were cleaning up after Emmett had gone home, we found a pirate Tonie tangled in the sheets. I put the pirate figure in front of our Little People creche and took a photo. Then I sent it to our daughter and asked her to show the photo to Emmett so he would know that his lost Tonie had been found.
Maybe you are feeling a little lost yourself this Christmas season. Maybe you're unsettled by political news, or missing someone you love. Maybe you feel out of place in your family or a friendship circle in which you used to feel safe. Maybe you've always felt like an outsider, looking in.
At one of the churches where I was a pastor, we decorated the sanctuary for the Christmas season on the last Sunday of November. Children helped. They put red bows on the pews, hung ornaments on the tree, and placed the Holy Family inside the miniature stable on the altar. One child arranged the shepherds, sheep, donkey and cow in a precise circle outside the stable. Another child, a six-year-old literalist, insisted that the baby Jesus should not appear on the bed of straw until Christmas Eve. Following this logic, her older brother picked up the three wise men and moved them to the top of the organ, halfway across the sanctuary.
"What are you doing?" the six-year-old asked.
"They come from the East," he said. "And they don't arrive until Epiphany. January Sixth." Even if he was a Sunday School show-off, his point was well-taken.
The wise men were from really far outside the circle.
Not only had they arrived late to the party, they weren't even Jews.
According to Jewish law at the time of Jesus, righteous Jews were supposed to keep themselves completely separate from Gentiles. No touching, no socializing, no shared utensils. The laws had been established for good reasons: to protect their distinct identity as the Chosen People and to honor the holiness of God.
But according to the gospel of Matthew, some dignitaries from the east, non-Jews, had seen an unusual star in the sky, consulted their astrological charts, and determined that the star heralded the birth of a great new king. They headed west to pay him homage.
But nobody would have expected them to be there.
Pastor Debbie Blue points out just how jarring their presence would have been to the family gathered inside. "They are popularly and familiarly known as the wise men or three kings," Blue says, "but they are more properly Magi: magic. They follow the stars. They conjure. They are really more Merlin than Arthur. Yet year after year they stand there at almost every manger scene all stiff and innocent and respectable as if they fit in, as if they've always been there, as if they're supposed to be there, as if they're not flaming pagans intruding on the birth scene of a little Jewish family."
Blue puts it in modern idiom: "It would be like finding a big plastic Homer Simpson leaning over the baby Jesus on the Cathedral lawn."
Anyone can be there.
For the gospel writer Matthew, who tells the story of the Magi's visit, the presence of these wise men at the manger demonstrates that Jesus is for everyone, not just for his own people, the Jews. Perhaps Matthew was remembering words spoken by the Jewish prophet, Isaiah, "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." (Isaiah 49:6) The story of the Magi suggests that God's love moves in ever-widening circles, like when a stone is dropped into a pond, rippling out in wider and wider circles until it touches the whole earth.
Legend has it that animals of all kinds gathered at midnight around the stable, made peaceable by the coming of Christ. Maybe a sparrowhawk flew over the wadi and perched on the roof. Or a lion stalked the perimeter, then eased its head down on massive paws. A black beetle skittered alongside the wall.
All can come.
May you find your place at the creche this Christmas. Everyone is welcome.
Come.
Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12
Playlist: "We Three Kings" by John H. Hopkins, Jr., 1857.