I’ll blame a bunch of Zoroastrians. That’s what I’ll be doing
this weekend as I drive through the crowded Gilroy Premium Outlets
in a quest to find a parking spot and begin my Christmas shopping.
And, as you stroll the malls shoulder to shoulder with other
shoppers, I suggest you too remember whose fault it is for our
annual holiday buying binge
…
I’ll blame a bunch of Zoroastrians. That’s what I’ll be doing this weekend as I drive through the crowded Gilroy Premium Outlets in a quest to find a parking spot and begin my Christmas shopping. And, as you stroll the malls shoulder to shoulder with other shoppers, I suggest you too remember whose fault it is for our annual holiday buying binge …
Blame it all on a bunch of Zoroastrians who, two millenia ago, took a 900-mile jaunt across the Arabian Peninsula.
Never heard of Zoroastrians? There aren’t too many of them around the South Valley these days. See, Zoroastrianism was a popular religious faith in the Middle East a long time ago – several centuries before the time of Jesus, as a matter of fact. It got started in Persia (what’s now Iraq and Iran) and was named after a guy name Zarathustra.
You know the somber French horn music of Stanley Kubrick’s movie “2001”? Those famous opening chords, composed by Richard Strauss, are from “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” Well, when Zarathustra spoke, the Persians listened. The priest revealed to them an influential religion revering a god named “Mithras.”
Here’s the ancient legend: A virgin gave birth to Mithras in a manger on Dec. 25 – the winter solstice for the ancient world. Shepherds witnessed Mithras’s miraculous birth. Zoroastrians believed the child descended from Heaven to battle “the Evil Lord” and offer salvation to the world.
According to the story, the divine dude’s followers became “born again” after taking a ritual bath in blood from a slaughtered bull. Devotees also ate the bull’s flesh and drank its blood. They believed this interesting meal gave them immortality.
When Mithras died, followers buried him in a cave. But, the story goes, he conquered death after three days. He stepped out of the cave into the rising sun’s light.
After his resurrection, their god ascended to heaven on a pillar of light (some versions say it was a chariot of light). Zoroastrians believed Mithras was both human and divine, and he would return at the end of time. And on Judgment Day, he’d send the wicked to eternal damnation and raise the righteous from death to spend eternity with him in Paradise.
The Zoroastrians venerated him as the sun god. They even called his day of worship “Sun Day.” Remember, Zoroastrians believed this myth centuries before the birth of Jesus.
So what do Zoroastrians and Mithras have to do with the fact this weekend we’ll all be battling each other for bargains in a buying blitz?
Read on.
In the year 7 B.C.E., there was an astronomical wonder in the ancient skies. The “wandering stars” Jupiter and Saturn had a conjunction in the constellation of Pisces three times during six months. Babylon was the political and religious heart of Persia. Some modern scholars believe it might have been in that ancient city that Zoroastrian astrologer-priests – called “Magi” – witnessed this celestial event. They deduced it a heavenly sign that a divine king – prophesied to herald the return of Mithras would soon be born. Pisces symbolized Judea. So the Magi concluded the promised king would be born in that small country – a mere two-month camel ride west of Babylon.
Preparing for their trip, the Magi gathered gifts they considered appropriate. A chest containing gold represented royalty. Frankincense gathered from Yemen symbolized divinity. And myrrh – embalming fluid for corpses – symbolized mortality and human death. (OK, myrrh maybe wasn’t exactly the jolliest of gifts for a kid, but it’s the thought that counts, right?)
The large entourage of priests, servants and pack camels journeyed along desert trade routes to Jerusalem, Judea’s capital. They stopped at the palace to chat with King Herod. They learned he had absolutely no idea about any miraculous royal birth.
In their detective search, the scholarly Magi probably uncovered a real clue at Jerusalem’s Temple library. Sacred texts prophesied a Savior descendant of King David would be born in Bethlehem.
Immediately, the Magi hopped on their camels and headed south five miles to that tiny village. And there, if the biblical story is true, they found Jesus, newly born to a nice young Jewish couple from Nazareth.
It was a sight the neighbors never forgot: richly ornamented Zoroastrian priests venerating a peasant baby. And the gifts – the gold! Mary and Joseph had hit the lottery.
If this ancient story is fact, the Magi’s visit certainly had a massive impact on Jesus’s future. No doubt it sparked in the smart Jewish boy’s inquisitive brain a zealous curiosity to learn more about Zoroastrianism. But did the visit – and the lavish gifts – also spark a personal destiny?
Certainly, Jesus witnessed the brutal treatment of his Jewish friends and family by the savage Roman military. “Maybe,” he might have pondered as he helped his hard-laboring dad, “maybe the Magi were right. Maybe I am destined to be the Savior King.”
Perhaps the Magi’s visit set in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy. And perhaps Jesus, as a teenager or in his early 20s, decided to visit Babylon – maybe track down the astrologer-priests who’d paid him homage at his birth.
A merchant’s caravan could make the trip from Jerusalem to Babylon in 40 days. Conceivably, in a possible meeting with Zoroastrians in that great city’s temples and libraries, Jesus heard the ancient myth of Mithras. Of course, I now speculate. Time destroyed any legitimate historic records long ago, so we’ll never know for sure.
Today, the impact of the Bible’s story of the Zoroastrian priests’s veneration of Jesus is still felt here in the South Valley – and across the globe. Those “wise men” brought three gifts to honor a child. Those three gifts started a Christmas tradition.
As we frantically start our Christmas shopping this weekend, let’s stop and remember the real reason the Magi brought presents to a Bethlehem manger. Our holiday gift-giving honors the child within us all.
