Led by a Star, Changed by a Birth

​The Journey Of The Magi
by T.S. Elliot
​

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.'
​

Pastor McLane Stone

And the camels galled, sorefooted, 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 arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might 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 had 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.

As many of you know, this poem from T.S. Eliot is one of my favorites. It has become a tradition to share it with you each Advent season, and I see no reason why this year should be any different.

Every Advent, we return to familiar images: soft starlight over Bethlehem, shepherds in quiet fields, and wise travelers journeying from afar. We picture the Magi with their gifts, their camels, their noble procession coming to worship the newborn Jesus. But Eliot refuses to let us keep the story in the realm of comfort and nostalgia. His poem is gritty, disorienting, and unsettling—because genuine encounters with Christ often are.

Eliot imagines the Magi looking back on their journey years later. What they remember is not a picturesque nativity scene but difficulty:

“A cold coming we had of it… the very dead of winter… the camels galled… the towns unfriendly… the cities hostile.”

Nothing about this pilgrimage was easy. They left behind comfort, predictability, and the symbols of their old way of life (“summer palaces… silken girls bringing sherbet”). They traded ease for uncertainty, luxury for cold nights, and social status for a journey that others ridiculed as folly.

Yet they kept going—drawn by something they could not fully name.

When they finally arrived at the place where the Christ child was, Eliot refuses to romanticize the moment. The Magi found what they were looking for—“it was (you might say) satisfactory”—but the encounter left them changed in a way they did not expect.

That’s the turning point of the poem.

Birth or Death?
Looking back, the Magus asks one of the most haunting questions in all of Eliot’s writing:
“Were we led all that way for Birth or Death?”

Of course, there was a birth—Jesus, the long-awaited King. But this birth brought about the end of the Magi’s old world. They “returned to their places” but found they were “no longer at ease… in the old dispensation.” They no longer fit in the world they once inhabited so confidently. The coming of Christ meant the death of their former way of being.

And that is the paradox of Christian faith:
To find the One who is Life is also to experience the death of everything that cannot coexist with His kingdom.

Advent is not simply preparation for a sweet manger scene; it is a season of holy disruption. It asks us what must end in us so that Christ may be born anew.

When Christ Comes, Something Always Changes
The Magi’s experience mirrors our own faith journeys. We begin with longing—sometimes even with excitement—but following Christ will eventually lead us into unfamiliar, uncomfortable territory. It may ask us to leave behind habits, priorities, or identities that once felt like home.

Sometimes faith feels like traveling through “the very dead of winter.”
Sometimes following Jesus means admitting that old securities no longer fit.
Sometimes it means recognizing that the world around us clutches its own small gods—and so do we.

But the promise is this: Christ meets us at the end of that road. And every encounter with Him brings both a birth and a death—new life emerging even as old patterns fall away.

A Journey Worth Taking Again
Near the end, the Magus says,
“All this was a long time ago… and I would do it again.”

Despite the hardship, he would take the journey again. Because once Christ has been found—truly found—there is no going back to life as it was. There is only moving forward into the new world God is bringing.

As a church family this Advent, perhaps we are being invited to take the Magi’s journey ourselves—to leave the familiar, follow God’s leading even when it feels like “folly,” and allow Christ to unsettle and reshape us.

May we, like the Magi, be courageous enough to follow the star.
May we be honest enough to name what must die in us for Christ to be born anew.
And may we find, on the other side of the journey, that the One we seek has been seeking us all along.

Blessings on your journey,
Pastor McLane