In Matthew’s account of the nativity, he includes the story of the wise men coming to visit Jesus as a baby/child. Below are some thoughts on this facet of the story.
- It is unlikely that the wise men saw Jesus laying in a manger. We typically have 3 wizened men standing just outside the stable in our nativity yard displays, including them in that blessed night of Jesus’ birth. However, before the wise men went to Bethlehem, they went to Jerusalem and asked Herod where to find the newborn king. Herod spoke to the men to find out when they saw the star heralding the Christ’s arrival and then ordered all the boys in Bethlehem up to two years old to be killed. It is very possible that Jesus was already crawling or even walking.
- The text never says how many wise men came to see Jesus. It does mention 3 gifts that were given, but not the number of men. It does use the plural, ‘men,’ so the number could be anywhere from 2 upward.
- The wise men were not kings. We have a popular carol called “We three kings,” and we sometimes use ‘kings’ and ‘wise men’ interchangeably in the nativity story. However, the text never refers to them as kings; only as wise men or magi. As far as I can tell from 2 minutes of research, the legend of Three Kings comes from the medieval time period.
- The wise men were not Israelites. They were from the east and when they left Bethlehem they returned “to their own country.” Most likely they were from Persia. In any case, they noticed the signs of Christ’s birth and acted on it, when the nation that was anticipating Christ’s birth (Israel) totally overlooked what happened. The shepherds mentioned in the book of Luke were miraculously told about Christ’s birth, but the wise men were studying and paying close attention to learn of this event. Kind of makes me think, “How much about God are we overlooking because we aren’t studying and paying close attention like we should?”
- Even when the wise men came to Jerusalem and announced what they had seen and why they were there (“all Jerusalem was troubled” [because of what they said]), none of the Israelites went out to see the new born Messiah.
The wise men are a unique and important part of the story of Christ’s birth because they did what every God-fearing Israelite should have done…they went out of their way to meet the Christ and bring him gifts. This responsibility falls to us today. We, too, need to study the Scriptures, search diligently for Him in our lives, then go out of our way to lay our treasures at his feet.
May you think about that every time you see a nativity with ‘Three Kings’ standing around the stable.