Epiphany

Now that you have given your true love all of those gifts listed in the song, "The 12 Days of Christmas," including a concert by those 12 drummers drumming; you can start to sing, "We Three Kings."

Actually, we don't really know how many visited Jesus (not in a stable, but a house). We assume three because of the three types of gifts listed, and of course because of the song. We also know the stories about the other visitors - there is a short story about a fourth wiseman, who did not make the trip; and we sing rum pum pum pum with the Little Drummer Boy.

They go by several names. They were not kings, as the song implies. The were wisemen, secifically magi, learned men who studied the stars in order to predict monumental world events. They had noticed something new and unusual in the night skies, and having determined that it was a precursur to a major change in world order, they came looking for the one whose was born to be a ruler.

They were wisemen, but they didnt' know everything. As one devotion I read put it, they were "off by 9 miles." That's the distance from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. They had assumed that the birth would be a continuation of the power structure of the world. The a king could only be born in a palace in a powerful city like Jerusalem. They didn't understand either the Hebrew scriptures of the ways of God. Too many look for God in all the wrong places. They are so close, off by just a little; but that little makes a big difference.

Had Jesus been born to a royal family, he would have ruled as earthly kings rule - by power, might, and wealth. Instead Jesus was humbly born to an average family, and rules among his people with love, grace, mercy and compassion. Such is the way of God. This is the true light revealed in Jesus. And the light is the life for all humanity. (John 1)

May that light shine in your heart and throughout your life.
Amen!