Dave Brisbin 12.29.24
When a rich young man asks what he must do to experience eternal aliveness, and Jesus tells him to sell all he has, and the man walks away with head hung, Jesus tells his friends how hard it is for wealthy people. Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter aliveness. The Aramaic word for camel, gamla, can also mean rope, so take your pick of images, but…it’s really hard.
So how did the Magi beat those odds? Magi were wealthy, educated, astronomer/astrologers, influential advisors to power, yet when they saw the eastern rising of the prophetic star for which they had been searching for centuries, they jumped on their camels and headed west. So far, so good. All in the realm of accepted science and entrenched belief. But when that star “stood over” Bethlehem—when Jupiter went retrograde, signaling the end of their western push, and they found the one born at the rising of the king’s star—what could have prepared them for the abject poverty and insignificance of the infant? How were they able to see past centuries of expectation to the unassuming fulfilment of promise?
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What did the Magi have that the rich young man did not?
The Magi brought three gifts. Gold symbolizes desire, and frankincense, the action of faith. So far, so good. But desire and action along the certainty of our entrenched belief can only take us to the precipice of the manger. At the manger, we are asked to sell everything that expects something certain. The Magi have one gift left. Myrrh…surrender. Without surrender to the unexpected, impossible, improbability of God, all our other gifts don’t matter. They can’t squeeze us through the needle’s eye.
