Extract from Approaching Christmas by Jane Williams [Lion £9.99 0-7459-5198-8] first printed in the Church Times, January 2006
In a touching meditation, Evelyn Waugh talks to the wise men as those who represent all of us who trust in our own human wisdom alone.
“How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculations, where the shepherds had run barefoot! How odd you looked on the road, attended by what outlandish liveries, laden with such preposterous gifts!… yet you came, and were not turned away. You too found room before the manger. Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted and put carefully by, for they were brought with love. In that new order of charity that had just come to life, there was room for you, too. You were not lower in the eyes of the holy family than the ox or the ass. You are ….. patrons of all latecomers, of all who have a tedious journey to make to the truth. Of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents.”
At the crib of Jesus, all are welcome, and that is what the wise men tell us. Over the centuries, they have come increasingly to represent everybody. Artists begin to paint them to represent different races – Western, Arab and black. They portray them as men at different stages of their lives – a youth, a man in his prime and an old man.
They are all of us, called from all over the world to witness the birth of the new, strange king, and be changed by it. Jesus’ God is not the possession just of people who already know him, or of people who are already pure in heart. He draws around the cradle of his new kingdom all kinds of people, with all kinds of talents. The only thing that they all have in common is that when they see the baby, they know that they have seen someone who will change their lives.
Perhaps the wise men and the shepherds spent the rest of their lives telling the story of this great event. Perhaps every time they told it they saw more and more how all of their lives had prepared them to recognize the baby when they saw him.
But the wise men in particular are there to tell us that the same will be true of all of us. Whatever our lives have been up until now, as we look at the baby lying in the straw, we can see in him the loving activity of God. We can look back over the whole of our lives, and know that everything – even the things that we are most ashamed of, even the things we know to have been wrong – have been preparing us to see this baby, and know him and accept his gift of life.
Men with Baggage