Devotion - Monday, January 6

Today is Epiphany.  January 6 is the date for commemorating the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus.  Our Christmas pageants tend to imply that this visit occurs while the new-born baby is still in a stable, with the shepherds in attendance.  But the story told in Matthew suggests this visit may have come as much as two years after Jesus' birth.

The visitors are clearly not Jews.  They are from a different country; followers of differing deities.  This is the significance of their visit:  the Christ child's arrival has implications for everyone.  The prophet Isaiah had said it, "It it too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

W.H. Auden's poem "Star of the Nativity" which begins:  

I am that star most dreaded by the wise, 

For they are drawn against their will to me.

 ...I shall deprive them of their minor tasks.

The world would rather go about its business and do it's own thing.  But the star beckons all and alters our course.  We can no longer look to tribe or tradition, but are drawn to that which is God's message for the world.