When I was in India,
I spent some time at a famous Christian ashram, Shantivanam.
I met there a man who had been a student of Dom Bede Griffiths,
well known for his insightful books about Christ in India.
Br. John Martin Sahajananda was himself
a profound theologian and excellent teacher.
I learned much by attending his daily satsungs.
I want to share with you this morning
some new and insightful thoughts from him
about the old and familiar story
of the visit of the wise men to the Virgin and Holy Child.
First I need to say something about what we mean by wise men
about being wise and about wisdom.
There is a significant difference between knowledge and wisdom.
Knowledge is an accumulation of learning,
it is stored in memory and is brought up out of the past.
Knowledge is lived out in the mind.
Wisdom is a creative process lived in the present,
responsive, adaptive and relevant to the moment.
Wisdom can use knowledge, but it doesn’t work the other way around.
Wisdom is like a flowing river,
knowledge is like a bucket of water separated from the living river.
Wisdom is quality, knowledge is quantity.
Wisdom cannot be seen with the naked eye but can be perceived by the heart.
Wisdom is as light as a feather or as invisible as the wind,
but knowledge is heavy with the accumulation of years.
Wisdom gives life to dead knowledge.
It is like pouring the bucket of water back into the river again.
To acquire knowledge one needs money and time,
but wisdom is given freely.
Wisdom can satisfy our desire for truth far beyond what knowledge can do.
So we have the story of some wise men from the East
coming to see a child and his mother.
Is this just a quaint story in our sacred texts?
Or does it hold some wisdom of spiritual depth for us?
What is the eternal truth embedded in this story
that might be revealed to eyes that see and ears that hear?
What is the meaning of this “living parable”
of the Virgin, the Child and the wise men?
- a meaning and wisdom available for our own lives –
Br. John Martin described it thus:
“Mary represents the virgin mind,
and the child Jesus represents the eternal wisdom born from God.
The child is the symbol of the creative life.
The birth of wisdom is a great joy for those who are waiting for it
and who want to place themselves under its guidance.
…The wise men were seekers of God and seekers of truth.
“When Mary, the virgin par excellence gave birth to the wisdom par excellence,
the star appeared in the sky.
…The star appeared in the East
and it is in the East that the new day is born, where new life begins.
The wise men who came from the East represent a mind
in which ignorance has come to an end
and in which the light of truth has appeared.
…[In other words] the fulfillment of knowledge is to be at the service of wisdom,
to be a vehicle of wisdom.”
“Wisdom,” Br. John Martin said, “is seeing the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.”
So when the wise men saw the star in the sky and it led them to a child,
their minds were not limited by their knowledge and expectations,
and they could readily respond with joy and drop to their knees
and worship this child –
who was not the great ruler they might have expected,
but a baby fresh to this world,
not yet conditioned by knowledge from the world he had been born into.
“Wisdom is seeing the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.”
Here is an eternal truth revealed to us in this story. Again Br. John Martin:
“The star appears and disappears.
When one leaves the security of the mind and knowledge,
the star appears and guides.
But when one falls back onto the mind the star disappears.
To encounter the star, to encounter wisdom, and to be led by it,
is an experience of great joy.
There are moments in one’s life when the star appears clearly,
at other times it disappears, for instance when doubts enter our minds,
but then again it appears to cast out all these doubts.
To be led by a star is an adventure.”
So the star leads the wise men to the Child and they fall on their knees before him
and they give him and his mother gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
They offer everything they have accumulated during their search for truth.
Br. John Martin says that
“…this is a beautiful representation of the culmination
of the search of the human mind,
which not only falls at the feet of wisdom
but also offers all its possessions to wisdom to be used by wisdom.
“The mind can accumulate material, sensual and spiritual treasure.
Gold represents material riches,
myrrh [an expensive perfume] represents sensual riches
and incense represents spiritual riches.
Nothing is rejected, everything is placed at the service of wisdom,
and everything is consecrated,
everything has found its proper and rightful place.”
Now there is another actor in the story, one we shouldn’t ignore – Herod.
Br. John Martin says:
“There are two kinds of seekers –
the person who wants to find error and to kill,
[horrendously present to us in the news right now]
and the person who, with a pure heart and mind,
is searching for the truth to worship it, as did the wise men.
…Herod represents established power structures,
the mind that clings to power, that finds security in power
and wants to continue that power from generation to generation.
…This kind of mind does not hesitate to use violence to protect itself
and to ensure the continuation of its position and power.
This kind of mind reduces truth to a system of knowledge to be protected.
It sees itself as the guardian of the structure,
and, always fearful, suspicious and defensive, seeks to protect the status quo.”
Herod was afraid of the child and acted quickly,
getting the information he needed so that he could make his plan
for nullifying the threat the child was bringing to his power and security.
“A mind that is closed in on itself,” Br. John Martin said,
“[is a mind that] is dead,
it is a mind that has defined the truth and which refuses life and wisdom.
But it is not possible to kill wisdom
just as a dead person cannot kill a living person.
Herod was already dead
because he had structured the truth and put it into the tomb of knowledge.
“…The wise men were the opposite of Herod…
They had nothing to defend, nothing to propagate,
and all they did is to prostrate themselves at the feet of wisdom
and to offer everything they had as a gift
to [the One who is] the Gift that they had received,
so everything became a gift.”
So the Virgin, the Holy Child
and the Wise Men at the feet of the child offering their gifts
present to us a wonderful symbol of spiritual truth for our everyday lives.
One last quotation:
“The old is at the service of the new,
the past is at the service of the present.
Knowledge is at the service of wisdom.
…Usually it is the old who lead the child,
the past that guides the present,
and knowledge tries to define wisdom…
But here the roles are reversed.”
The old is at the service of the new,
the past is at the service of the present.
Knowledge is at the service of wisdom.
So as we reflect on our own lives in relation to all this,
where in our lives do we see clearly
the difference between wisdom and knowledge?
Where do we stick with what we know
in order to stay secure?
Where does the wisdom that can be seen by the heart
lead us beyond the status quo into the adventure of seeking the truth?
Are we more like the wise men?
or like Herod?
At any time each of us can be a wise person or a Herod.
Yet even a Herod can yet become a wise person.
A newborn child leads the old and the wise,
and in him eternity, truth, and life is manifested:
Emmanuel – God with us.
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