Advent and Christmas Poetry 3: Conversion – T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”

We all know the story of the Three Kings, even if only from the chorus of “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” However, Holy Scripture does not call these men kings, but rather magi, “wise men from the east” (Matthew 2:1) who journeyed from a far-off land to offer gifts to the baby Jesus. But why did they make the trip? What did they hope to find – and what did they find?

They came to find the Truth. Their story reminds us that Christmas is a call to conversion, if we will only hear it.

The great poet T.S. Eliot, arguably the finest poet of the 20th century, converted to Christianity as an adult. The poem “The Journey of the Magi” was written shortly after his conversion; an imaginative extrapolation of what the magi experienced on their journey to see the infant Christ, it is also an extended metaphor for the journey to faith in Christ.

We are all called to conversion, every one of us. God calls each and all of us – but He does not force us to listen, or to respond; that is our choice, given to us by the God who made us in His image. The choice to accept Christ may be dramatic, or it may be slow; it may be early in life, or it may be late. In one sense, conversion is a one-time event, but for every Christian it is also a daily, even hourly choice. Every day is a new conversion as we choose that day to follow Christ.

Eliot’s poem reminds us that such a choice is not always easy. The way of Christ is, after all, the way of the Cross. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?… For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:3, 5) We like to jump ahead to the glorious resurrection part (who wouldn’t?) but how do we get there? Paul says it straight: only if we die with Christ can we live with Him. We must crucify our old selves, die to sin, in order to live in Christ Jesus. Death, and rebirth.

Eliot’s narrator, the unnamed magi who is reflecting years later on the journey, puzzles over this very concept: “I have seen birth and death, / But had thought they were different; this Birth was / Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.”

The magi makes the long journey, accepting hardship, pressing onward despite the voices of self-doubt that sing in his ears, “saying / That this was all folly.” He passes through a landscape redolent with meaning that he does not see, images that foreshadow the Crucifixion – for when this baby was born, the Cross was already at the other end of His life. So, too, we have experiences whose depths of meaning we can only understand in retrospect… and so, too, we must face the insistent voices of self-doubt that whisper that searching for truth is foolish, naïve,  quixotic, a waste of time…

And the magi sees the infant Jesus, the Word made flesh. Words fail him; “it was (you may say) satisfactory.” In that moment, he is transformed; he has seen the Truth. How can anything be the same? Indeed it cannot.  It is birth – and death, his own death.

He cannot stay. He goes home – to a people who have not seen the Truth, “an alien people clutching their gods.” These are his people – but he is no longer one of them. He has seen into the Kingdom, and cannot any longer be at ease in his kingdom of this world.

Like the magi, we too cannot stay at the foot of the manger. We kneel in adoration, but then we have to go home, to live and work among a pagan people. We cannot be at ease in the world, nor should we be, because the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and has called us to follow Him.

In his final words, the narrator of “Journey of the Magi” challenges us. Have we accommodated ourselves to the pagan world? Have we become comfortable, and ceased to bear witness to the terrifying and beautiful Truth? Will we be glad of what the magi looks forward to?

Journey of the Magi

“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Related posts:

1. Advent and Christmas Poetry 1: Tension – Christina Rossetti’s “Sunday Before Advent”
2. The Call to Repentance and Conversion
3. Advent and Christmas Poetry 4: Awe – John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 15”
4. Advent Season: Living In Between
5. Advent and Christmas Poetry 2: Penitence and Patience – Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Patience, Hard Thing!”