Christmas is my second favorite holiday. The holiness of the season, what some refer to as the magic of Christmas, is palpable. Debates on when Jesus was actually born are largely irrelevant as people embrace giving and more openly showing their love for family and friends. Even in this reduced and largely materialistic way you can see and feel a bit closer to Christ as society, for a few weeks, takes one of two steps closer to a holier lifestyle. One of my family’s favorite traditions for kicking off the Christmas season is to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, a presentation that combines addresses by Apostles and other church leaders on the enduring meaning of Christ’s birth and life with beautiful music. As I was watching this with my family and meditating on the Nativity story as found in Luke 2, Matthew 1, and Matthew 2, I was struck by the immensely different experiences of the two groups called to witness the birth of Christ.
Luke tells us of the shepherds in the fields who had a magnificent experience, both seeing and hearing an angelic proclamation of the Savor’s birth, whom they are able to go and see that self-same night. Conversely, Matthew tells us the story of the Wise Men who, seeing a star in Heaven and recognizing it as the sign that the Messianic King of the Jews has been born, travel a great distance to give the child Jesus gifts worthy of a King. What we call a testimony is often referred to as a witness – a witness of the scriptures, a witness of Christ, a witness of the Restoration, etc. As I sat thinking upon these two groups and their very different experiences, their different witnesses of Christ, I realized just how poignantly they serve as examples of what it is like for all of us to gain our testimonies, our own modern day witnesses of Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God, born to redeem and exalt all those who would follow Him. We can learn a lot about what it takes to gain a testimony from God, how long it takes, and what we can do with our testimony by exploring the examples of these two groups. We can learn what it means to witness and be witnesses of the Messiah to all the world. The witness of the Wise Men is, I think, especially applicable and powerful today.
So, in this article I will explore who these men where, what we know of them from both the scriptures and wider history, what we can learn from their examples, and how to apply that knowledge into our individual lives today. More than just being a traditional story told during Christmas, the story of the birth if Christ is one that is still deeply meaningful to all of us today.
What the Gladsome Tidings Be?
After explaining the birth of Christ, Luke tells us this about the shepherds:
8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
Luke 2:8-20
Who were these shepherds that were granted such an incredible vision? We don’t know them personally. We don’t know their names, if they were married or single, or even how many of them there were. But we do know a great deal about what their lives would’ve been like. Unlike what has been commonly assumed about shepherds, in ancient Judea they were respected by the communities in which they lived. Sheep and the products gained from shepherding – milk, wool, sheepskin, goat horns, and ritual sacrifices – were all highly valued by the Jewish community that Jesus was born into. Dr. Scott Kent Brown, former Professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU and the former Director of the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, explains:
At first glance, the scene pictured in Luke 2:8 seems unusual: “Shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.” Why? Because usually an older child or young teenager in the family stays with the sheep through the night rather than an adult (see 1 Sam. 16:11 and 17:15, where the Hebrew text reads that young David “watches over his father’s sheep”). Even today, children of Middle Eastern shepherds mind the sheep through the night, whereas the adults spend nights out of doors only during the birthing period or during a crisis. Luke’s description features adult shepherds who are with the sheep. Therefore, the nighttime scene points to the lambing season, the springtime. In fact, the Greek expression that is translated “keeping watch over their flock by night” reads literally, “guarding watches of the night over their flock.” Because ancient Jewish people divided the nighttime hours into three watches, the language implies the shepherds are with their flock all night. Ewes are basically helpless when giving birth. So the shepherds stay with them to see that the newborn lambs are dried off and kept warm during that first cold night. One of the important benefits of Luke’s notation is that it suggests the general time of Jesus’ birth: the spring of the year.
So these were not men who were either outcast from society nor were they necessarily poor, as much as that image may appeal to us. All of which makes sense when you remember that Jesus would later repeatedly use the image of the shepherd to represent God, Himself, and us (his disciples). It wouldn’t make any sense to make these equations if shepherds held a status not much better than a thief, a prostitute, or some other similar demeaning role in society. It makes a great deal of sense that He would compare God, Himself, and us to people who were well respected in society. In fact, there is a possibility that these shepherds were more than just shepherds.
Dr. Alfred Edersheim, a influential convert to Christianity from Judaism, wrote of these shepherds:
Jewish tradition may here prove both illustrative and helpful. That the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem,949 was a settled conviction. Equally so was the belief, that He was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, ‘the tower of the flock.’950 This Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheepground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem. A passage in the Mishnah951 leads to the conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there, were destined for Temple-sacrifices,952 and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds. The latter were under the ban of Rabbinism,953 on account of their necessary isolation from religious ordinances, and their manner of life, which rendered strict legal observance unlikely, if not absolutely impossible.
The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
There is much to be careful of here. Dr. Edersheim is using the Mishnah, a text that was written in 200 AD, but which claims to preserve ancient Jewish ideas and traditions. That said, this is no reason to immediately dismiss it as an authentic preservation of Jewish traditions or to think that traditions prevalent in Christ’s day didn’t persevere until 200 AD. Judaism itself certainly had and, by the time of Christ’s birth, had already developed many of its traditions and practices which are still recognized and celebrated today. Passover, for example, has been celebrated by the Jewish community for thousands of years and has existed in its modern form for centuries. There is no reason that the tradition that the Mishnah records couldn’t have as well.
The tradition that Dr. Edersheim refers to can be found in the Mishnah Shekalim 7:4, which explains that any sheep found wandering between Jerusalem and the Midgal Eder, a watchtower in Bethlehem referenced in a prophecy of the Messiah and whose name means “tower of the flock,” were presumed to be sacrifices meant for the temple that had wandered off and needed to be recovered. It is Dr. Edersheim’s proposition then that the shepherds in Luke 2 could have been shepherds whose duty it was to watch over these sheep who were meant to be sacrificed but which had wandered from Jerusalem towards Bethlehem, had been found, and were now being pastured at the Tower of the Flock until they were taken back to Jerusalem.
This idea accords well with Dr. Brown’s idea that Luke 2 is set during the spring as Passover is in the Spring, usually in late March or early April. Therefore Christ would’ve been born during one of the busiest times of sacrifice in the Jewish year when it was most likely that quite a few sacrifices would have wandered from a Jerusalem filled with Jewish families coming to make the yearly sacrifice commanded by God. This in turn would have necessitated having more shepherds than usual in order to care for all the wandering sacrifices, sacrifices which might even demand greater care for being given them by adult shepherds even when that wasn’t usually the norm.
Dr. Margaret Barker, a religious historian who is expert in ancient temple symbolism, explained how the relationship between the Midgal Eder, the Tower of the Flock, and the birth of Christ was deeply entrenched in temple symbolism, a promised restoration of truths lost to the temple through apostasy:
The Tower of the Flock was not only a place near Bethlehem. It was an ancient name for the Holy of Holies, the place where the Lord of the sheep stood, and where His prophets received revelations. Details about the tower and the flock are found in 1 Enoch, where the history of Israel is the story of the flock and of the Lord of the sheep, who leaves his tower when the flock forsake him. The Lord allowed other angel shepherds to rule them (that is, foreign rulers), but an angel scribe kept a record of their deeds and begged the Lord to intervene. A birth among the shepherds outside Jerusalem but near the “Tower of the Flock” was a sign pointing to the birth in the original tower of the flock among the shepherds, in the Holy of Holies among the angels. The angel announced to the Bethlehem shepherds the birth of the Davidic king, in other words, the return of the Lord to His people in time of danger. Origen knew that the shepherds represented the guardian angels ‘keeping watch over their flocks by night,’ and that the angel of the Lord had announced the coming of the good shepherd to help them in their struggle.. Since the royal child was born in the Holy of Holies, he would have emerged into the world through the temple veil, and so Luke described how the heavens opened at that point. This was all God’s angels worshipping the Firstborn as he came into the world.
Temple Themes in Luke’s Account of the Angels and the Shepherds
Ultimately, it is impossible to know for certain whether the Shepherds of Luke 2 were indeed such special shepherds or were the more general shepherd. But the connection is tantalizing and does accord with what we do know while offering beautiful symbolism in regards to Christ’s birth. The idea that the Shepherds responsible for taking care of the sacrificial lambs for the Passover were the first to see and preach the coming of the Lamb of God is especially potent. And it might even offer an explanation of why the shepherds in that field at that time in that place had such a powerful vision. The keepers of the lambs of God would now keep the Lamb of God. And that brings us back to the concept of testimony.
The Testimony of the Shepherds
The shepherds, whether taking care of the sacrificial flocks or not, did not have to doubt their testimony. Their witness of God and His Christ came to them in a fiery vision in glory and wonder. They saw not just one angel, but a multitude. They did not hear a single heavenly voice, but a chorus. They did not have to puzzle out where Christ was in the world. They were directed exactly where to go, told exactly what to do, and had it explained to them exactly what they were looking for. In terms of testimonies and revelations this is the kind of golden experience all of us wish we could have, isn’t it? These kinds of testimonies are earth shattering in their power and immediately revolutionize the lives of those that have them.
They are also incredibly rare.
I personally know a few people who have had visionary experiences, though nothing of this magnitude. Well, except one who has seen Christ Himself. And our latter-day history has many of these kinds of stories scattered not only in our official histories but in the journals and stories of many others whose words are often overlooked. But most of us are seemingly not gifted such an experience. This is not to say the testimonies came without effort. These Shepherds were undoubtedly righteous men already involved in God’s work long before their vision came, especially if they were caring for the temple sacrifices. But most testimonies, most witnesses of God’s truth, do not come in this manner to most people. Most of us, whether we are the normal shepherd out at night simply doing his job or the special shepherd carrying out our religious duties to temple, church, and community, have experiences less like these shepherds and more like the Wise Men and only gain our testimonies through months and years of effort, sacrifice, and faith.
With Wond’ring Awe
After telling the story of the birth of Christ, Matthew tells us about the Wise Men:
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. “When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. …Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.”
When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
Matthew 2: 1-3, 7-12
Who were these Wise Men? We know very little about them. We assume there were three based on the number of gifts given the Christ child. But there could have as easily been two as there could’ve been twenty. Ultimately it is not as important as the clues given to us by the term “Wise Men” and that they came form the east. The term translated as Wise Men here is actually the Greek word magoi, or as it is plural, magi. The Magi were:
member[s] of an ancient Persian clan specializing in cultic [religious] activities. The name is the Latinized form of magoi, the ancient Greek transliteration of the Iranian original. From it the word magic is derived. …[It] appears that they constituted a priesthood serving several religions. The magi were a priestly caste during the Seleucid, Parthian, and Sāsānian periods; later parts of the Avesta, such as the ritualistic sections of the Vidēvdāt (Vendidad), probably derive from them. … As long as the Persian empire lasted there was always a distinction between the Persian magi, who were credited with profound and extraordinary religious knowledge, and the Babylonian magi, who were often considered to be outright imposters.
The Magi were a religious priesthood who were known for their profound wisdom and knowledge. They were particularly known for their knowledge of astrology, the belief that you can gain knowledge about current and future events by observing the movement of the stars and planets in the night sky. You know, such as following the sign of a new star to the birth of a great king. It is for these reasons that many Christians have concluded that the Magi were Persian priests, perhaps Zoroastrian priests, who knew of the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah thanks to the works of men like the prophet Daniel in Persia and the Jews who stayed in Persia after the end of the Captivity. And there is a lot of sense in these interpretations. They make sense and the theory is largely based on combining the facts of history with the facts we find in the scriptures.
But there is another possibility.
They may have been from Arabia.
Dr. John W. Welch, builds on this theory and argues that, like the Shepherds, the Magi were connected to temple symbolism and the restoration of the true temple ritual to Judea:
Based on ideas such as these, Margaret Barker, Christmas: The Original Story, has wondered if it might be possible that the Magi were a part of or related to these groups of hopeful priests watching for the coming of their Lord of Holiness. If so, one can argue that their gifts could not have been more perfectly suitable, given by priests to their new High Priest.
Gold was required in the Temple. According to scripture, the doors and altar (1 Kings 7:48), the table for the bread of the Presence (1 Kings 7:48), the lamp stands and drinking vessels of the Temple (1 Kings 10:21) were to be made of pure gold. Many other implements of the Temple were gold-plated. Gold was incorruptible and was thought to have embodied the radiance of the sun.
Frankincense provided the fragrance required by priestly regulations for every sacrifice “offered by fire to the Lord” (Leviticus 24:7). Its sweet smoke carried prayers up to heaven. It was burned in the Temple to invoke the presence of the Lord.
Myrrh, another resin from the life-sustaining sap of a desert tree, was a key ingredient in making the oil of anointment that imparted holiness, which oil could not be used outside the Temple (Exodus 30:25-33). Myrrh had disappeared from the Holy of Holies and been hidden away in the time of Josiah according to the Babylonian Talmud, Horayoth 12a. It represented Wisdom (Ben Sira 24:15) and was used in preparing the dead for burial. But more than that, this oil was known as the “Dew of resurrection” and, in the words of Barker, the myrrh oil had been used to anoint the royal high priests after the order of Melchizedek and to transform them into sons of God. Early Christians, such as Pope Leo the Great, said, “He offers myrrh who believes that God’s only begotten son united to himself man’s true nature,” the uniting of the divine and the human having been the great mystery of the myrrh oil in the Holy of Holies of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem.
Barker concludes with the point that old traditions also spoke about Adam receiving gold, frankincense, and myrrh from three angelic messengers, so that he could offer proper sacrifices when cast out of Eden. With these holy and exemplary implements—inherently precious, sacredly treasured, and eternally efficacious—Jesus, as the Second Adam, was prepared to offer the ultimate temple sacrifice as the new and everlasting High Priest, bringing powers and eternal life from heaven above to earth below.
The Wise Men and Their Priestly Gifts
The Testimony of the Magi
The Magi, whoever they were and however many of them there were, had no heavenly visions. They saw no angels. They heard no celestial choirs. All they had was their faith in and knowledge of the scriptures and teachings of the prophets, the words of men who, by the time of Christ, were long dead. All the Magi could do was wait, hope, and watch the heavens for a promised miraculous sign, one that heralded the birth of the promised Messiah. When that sign came – after approximately 600 years of patient waiting – there was no way to confirm it, no one with whom to check and make sure it was the right sign. Instead, acting on faith, they loaded up their caravans and started a trip across the wastes of the Middle East, toiling over hundreds of miles of painstaking travel, risking their lives in the process. At its quickest and safest, the trip from Arabia to Jerusalem is about 62 days and from Babylon to Jerusalem was a trip of about four months.
And when, after all the hardship of travel, they arrived at the Messiah’s door, what did they see? Angels? Heavenly visions? Celestial choirs? Brilliant lights and pillars of fire?
No. They saw the most mundane sight possible. They found a young mother and her young child.
Disappointing, right?
Not to the Magi.
To their natural eyes the woman and child looked as normal as ever, no different than of the other tens of thousands of women and children scattered throughout the Middle East. But with their spiritual eyes the Magi recognized the Mother of God and the Promised Messiah, the Son of God, and fell to their knees to worship Him. They gave Him gifts worthy of a Prophet, a High Priest, and a King. Then, the great mission of their lives accomplished, they leave and fade back into history.
Isn’t this the way it often is with our own spiritual experiences? So many of us expect, even demand, great and glorious visions or obviously divine intercession, a blatant miracle, before we will have faith in God and follow Him. But we don’t get it. In most cases we don’t deserve it. In every case we get something more important – the witness of the Holy Spirit, that quiet but powerful communication (1 Kings 19:11-13) to our hearts and minds (D&C 8:2) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who gave Himself as a divine sacrifice to redeem this world of sin. When we accept this witness and open our spiritual eyes we begin to see that much of what we saw as mundane – a bunch of people in dresses and suits shuffling to and from church every Sunday, for example – is actually infused with deep and momentous meaning which should incite within us our deepest feelings of love, service, and dedication.
But that kind of faith, that kind of witness, that kind of insight, that kind of testimony only comes after long periods spent struggling through trails and tribulations, building our faith in and relationship with God through years of patient prayer, scripture study, and waiting upon His will. As with the Magi, there is no other way for us to gain such a faith. And when we see our sign it is as often a call to even greater action as it is a comforting reassurance of peace. God always has more work for us to do and there is no other way to gain the kind of spiritual sight and power that we desire than by doing His work when He calls us to do it. Just like the Magi, we must sacrifice, and work, and sacrifice some more if we hope to gain the promised blessing. And we must be ready to do it for years, just as they did. It is exactly this patient labor and those willing sacrifices which make us capable of receiving the gift and able of valuing it for the precious pearl of great price that it is in our lives.
Final Thoughts
We today find ourselves in the same position that the ancient Magi did. Just as they waited for centuries studying the scriptures and watching the skies for the signs of His first coming, we have spent centuries studying the scriptures and watching the skies for the signs of His Second Coming. Just as they were prepared at every moment so that they could go to Him when the sign of His birth appeared, likewise we must prepare and be ready at every moment for Him to come again when He appears once more. In that endeavor we must have the virtues of the Magi as we look forward to the coming of the Christ to renew the world and establish justice and mercy through His rule upon the Earth. And Christmas is the perfect time to rededicate ourselves to building the Kingdom of God and preparing the Earth for His coming that all may take part in His blessings.
So, this Christmas let us cultivate the kind of patient, long-suffering, loving faith that the witnesses to the birth of the Christ had that we may witness of Him as they did. Let us diligently do our duties to God and His church, to our families, and to our fellowman. Let us strive to study the words of His Prophets and Apostles and to keep His commandments. Let us sacrifice our pride and vanities on the altar of our love for Him. Let us witness of the glory of His life and the light of His Gospel to all those around us. Let us be disciples of Christ first and foremost in all things, in all places, and with all people. Let us seek always to know and do the will of God in all things. Let us wait with patience and faith for the hand of God to be revealed. Let us have the eyes to see that hand when it works in our lives and in the world around us. Let us follow the example of the Shepherds and the Magi by showing our love for God and our dedication to His work in both word and deed.
God bless you all.
Merry Christmas!
