It started out with “wise men.” No, ladies that is not an oxymoron! Nor was it a slip of the tongue. Wise men really do exist! But perhaps in this case, it could be argued otherwise.
“How many?” No one knows for sure? Where did they come from? Again, no one knows? Were they “Kings” (like the song says) or were they “priests” or just a bunch of “star gazers?” Again, we do not know. All of that would be “pure speculation” on our parts.
What we “do know” is that some “foreigners,” some “non- Jews,” some “Gentiles” risked a great deal. They crossed “foreign boundaries” and entered “countries not their own.” They carried with them some “pretty pricey gifts” that hardly seemed to “fit the occasion.” They could have been easily robbed and beaten in route, but they obviously were not.
How large “an entourage” they had, again would simply be speculation?
The gifts of “gold, frankincense and myrrh” were all “symbolic gifts.”
“Gold” was always fit for a king.
“Frankincense” was burned in religious rituals, symbolizing prayers going up to God.
And “myrrh,” myrrh was used to embalm the bodies of the dead.
Strange gifts… Strange men… From some “foreign distant country,” simply designated as “from the east…”
They said that they followed some kind of “celestial event” or a “portent” in the skies above, some “sign or omen.” It led them to the place where they were going.
And then, being “learned men,” perhaps “not so wise of men” they knew it was best – to make a “courtesy call” on the nearest head of state.
It was then, that they met the infamous “Herod the Great.” Herod (incidentally) who died in 4BC…
Herod known – as being – the “great builder.” Herod who built the Temple in Jerusalem. Herod who built the Temple Mount, the Herodium, Masada and his winter palace in Jericho. Herod the “great builder!” Herod, the Great!
You know, the “foolishness of the wise” is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than by the way – the Magi went to Herod the Great, the “CURRENT” King of the Jews, to find out – the whereabouts of the “holy child” who just been born King of the Jews to “supplant him.”
Duh!
How could they NOT REALIZE that the birth of a “New King of the Jews” would be some kind of a “major threat” to the NOW REIGNING and CURRENT King of the Jews AND to his HEIRS?
Wise men, indeed!
Learned, perhaps! But wise???
It didn’t even strike them as “suspicious” when old Herod asked them to be sure to let him know “where” they “found him” – so “he too,” could hurry down and pay his own personal respects…
But there is that one little word in the scriptures (hidden deep in verse 7) that “awakens the reader.” “Herod “SECRETLY” called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.”
“Secretly”…covertly, in private, clandestinely, quietly, confidentially and discretely…
It has been said, that all “honorable business” is always done openly…without concealment, publicly…anything but secretly…
So “red flags” immediately go up for the reader…just not for the “wise men…”
Luckily for the “holy child,” after the Magi followed their star to the manger and left their presents, they were “tipped off” in a dream to avoid Herod “like the plague” on their way home.
Not only did they follow “stars or comets” or “portents in the skies above,” but they also believed in “dreams and visions…”
“O-ne-ir-ology,” the “study of dreams and their interpretation” was also a part of their forte.
And so, they did not return to the palace and to the King…and took a different way back to where they came from…
Old Herod was “fit to be tied” when he realized he had been “had” and ordered the murder of every male child “two years old and under” in the district.
The slaughter of the “Holy Innocents” we call it.
For all of his “enormous power and wealth,” he knew there was somebody “in diapers” more powerful still.
I tell you. The wisdom of “the foolish” is perhaps nowhere better illustrated…then right here.
Wise men, indeed!