The simplest questions are the most profound.

What do you seek?
Who is your guide?
Where will we go?
Why did you come?
How will it end?

Tomorrow, Shrove Tuesday will signal Mardi Gras in New Orleans and a grand party will commence only to be abruptly ended by one the most somber days of the church year, Ash Wednesday, the day we reflect upon our own death as we prepare for the 40 days of Lent which remind us of the events leading to Jesus' death.

It is an odd and dramatic juxtaposition: a party followed by a death. This unusual pairing is of particular consequence, for a party followed by a death is on our minds at PLU. Listening to a student at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, simple questions with profound intent emerged anew:

What might I have done?
How will I find peace?
Why do the young and innocent suffer?
How will it end?
Where was God?

Perhaps we are too tied up in the costumed nostalgia of the Magi to consider their deeper message.

I remember dressing up in my grandfather's bathrobe, carrying a gold-painted cigar box studded with sea-shell macaroni while appearing in my Baptist Sunday School Christmas pageant. But deeper meanings lie underneath this childhood lens just as subtler things are suggested by the academic bathrobes faculty wear. Illumination from the Magi is unique for all us serving the faith in a university setting for the Magi remind us that Gold holds a special place for the learned, the confused the curious.

We don't know much about these Wise Men from the East. But what we do know parallels the university: They valued education. They undertook a journey together in quest for understanding.

And they had questions.

Theirs was a slow and painstaking journey, and it is entirely appropriate to speak of them long after Christmas has passed on the next to last day of the Epiphany season, for some scholars believe they came as late as two years after Christ's birth.

How different this was than the Shepherds! The Shepherds, their ears ringing with the sound of the angel chorus singing "glory to God in the highest" seemingly ran barefoot all the way to Bethlehem that very night. It comes as no surprise to any of us that human society has valued the Shepherd timetable, but the Magi are the patron saint of latecomers:

This is their first gift: they remind us that time, even great lengths of time, may be required to reach our journey's end, be it the grief of today or the scope of our entire lives.

Their second gift is the realization that their quest was fueled by curiosity borne of humility. For them, "The primordial discipline of the heavens had relaxed and a new defiant light blazed among the stars."

And this was their question:

Why did this happen?

Why did this happen?

A measure of their Magi's wisdom is their willingness to consider that they might not understand. Such was their humility, that though they were great kings, they undertook the journey themselves and vested themselves in a humble assertion that God may be at the center of this event, and perhaps this star was evidence that creation was still unfolding.

In our scientific certainties, do we leave room for creation to still unfold? In our grief, can we embrace the notion that God reveals things in His own season, and though God may not reveal answers gives us each other as companions in this search.

For you see, it is only at the end of Lent that we gain the perspective of Ash Wednesday becoming Good Friday. Creation was unfolding through that star - the redemption of Christ. Creation may be unfolding as our grief is transformed to humility and compassion.

A third lesson is more troubling.

For the Bible records that when the Magi came to the final stage of their quest, they stopped to exchange courtesies with their social equal, King Herod.

While their rank was equal, their motives were not: humility met arrogance. For in this story, Herod, is the one person who is sure He knows the truth: Herod was the King of Jews. And his arrogance and self-righteousness spawned that terrible slaughter of the innocent children. It is a warning running through all Scripture:

The arrogance of self-perceived certainty divides the faithful and tortures the innocent. Jesus constantly reminds us:

The meek shall be raised, and the powerful shall be cast down.

Though they were powerful, the Magi reminds us that God has a special place for the learned: Though they were latecomers, they were not turned away. Though theirs was a painstaking procession, they saw the face of Jesus. Though their politeness with Herod engendered wrath, room was found for them before the manger.

Whenever my life is consumed with intellectual curiosity, whenever my theology is challenged by a voice others might label "heretical," whenever my faith is thin and tattered when confronted with random suffering, I am cheered by the light of the Magi.

For their gifts to the child are powerful symbols of the special perceptions afforded to the learned: They brought gold, because it was a gift for King, and Jesus was King of the Jews.

We too, shall wear own crown just as Monica has received hers.

They brought frankincense, because it was a gift for priest, used to purify the temple. Jesus was a priest, offering himself as a sacrifice for our purification.

And their unique wisdom and sensitivity is most touchingly captured in the final gift, for myrrh was an embalming spice, and a symbol of that child's imminent death.

We in the university must bring our gifts: scholarship and faith, questions and vision, disagreements and dialogue, confusion and wonderment, patience and humility. The gifts have a place at the foot of the crèche and in the shadow of the Cross. As God did not reject their curious gifts, may we too pray that the learned, the delicate, the forgotten and those who died young shall not be forgotten at the Throne of God, when the simple come into their kingdom.

May God grant us kneeling place in that same straw.

James Holloway
February 25, 2001