Tag: wise men

Christmas Quiz part 2

Welcome to the second of three parts of a Christmas Quiz I prepared and used at a recent church service. All ages were present, so some questions were aimed at the children (though several adults raised their hands, perhaps young at heart).

If you have not read and engaged with part 1 of this series, I’d strongly urge you to do so before moving on to this quiz. You’ll find it at: https://occasionallywise.com/2025/12/27/christmas-quiz-part-1/ As well as tackling the first quiz, you’ll understand better the three sections in each of the quizzes – 1) the quiz; 2) the answers; 3) a personal reflection.

I hope you do well with Quiz 2. And that you don’t disbelieve the story near the end of my bizarre and dangerous journey… There is a point to it. From both the quiz and reflection I trust you will learn, enjoy, and feel challenged!

Part 1  The wise men who visited Jesus

Q1  The wise men came from the east to find Jesus. No-one knows for sure, but where did they travel from?

  1. Europe, perhaps Italy or Greece
  2. Ancient Persia, perhaps countries like Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan
  3. North Africa, perhaps Egypt or Mauretania

Q2  How did the wise men travel to visit Jesus?

  1. Taxi
  2. Plane
  3. Camel
  4. Walked

Q3  How long would the journey have taken for the wise men to visit Jesus?

  1. 5 days
  2. 50 days
  3. 500 days

Q4  What were the names of the wise men?

  1. Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar
  2. Matt, Tommy, Alex
  3. We don’t know

Q5  We don’t know how many wise men there were, but we do know they brought three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Each gift had a special significance. But only one of the gifts below is described correctly, which means two gifts have wrong descriptions. Which gift has the right description?

  1. Gold – used in worship of God
  2. Frankincense – a gift for a king
  3. Myrrh – an embalming oil used after death

Q6  Why did the wise men take a different route home?

  1. They wanted to do some sightseeing
  2. They took a wrong turning – went west instead of east
  3. They didn’t want to be forced to tell Herod where Jesus was
  4. King Herod’s soldiers were searching for them because they had failed to obey his order to return to him after visiting Jesus

Part 2  Answers to Quiz 2 questions

Question 1 mentions that the Bible says the wise men came from the east (Matthew 2: 1), but asks us to be more specific about where they were from. The best answer here is ancient Persia, most likely from modern day Iran. They would have travelled on trade routes which extended from Europe all the way to China. The alternative answers are obviously wrong – since they came from the east their homes were neither to the west nor the south.

Question 2 – asking how the wise men travelled – was really for the children, all of whom knew which answers were silly: there were no taxis or planes back then.So the choice is that either they rode on camels or they walked. Keep in mind that the question asked how the wise men travelled. I point that out because the wealth of the magi makes it near certain that they rode on camels. But their servants will have walked.

Question 3 is about how many days it would have taken for the wise men to reach Jesus. The options in the question were 5 days / 50 days / 500 days. In this case, calculation and guesswork are both required.

First, we have to guess more exactly where the wise men started from. Persia covered a vast amount of the ancient world, in ancient times that was from countries in modern-day eastern Europe right across to parts of India and south to Egypt. It was smaller by the time Jesus was born but still large. Estimates, then, of how far the wise men and their servants travelled range from 500 to 1200 miles (805 km to 1931 km). I believe 1000 miles (1609 km) is a reasonable estimate.

Second, several factors will have affected how fast the wise men travelled:

  • Because their attendants will not have been provided with camels, progress will have been at walking pace
  • Even if they stuck to trade routes, the terrain would often be difficult
  • The weather would rarely be ideal; dust storms, for example, would halt all progress
  • People and camels would need rest stops
  • They couldn’t carry everything necessary for the whole journey, so they would stop occasionally to buy fresh supplies
  • They went to Jerusalem and later moved on to Bethlehem – we have to allow time in both locations
  • We know they returned home by a different route, almost certainly one less-travelled, so probably less direct and with more difficult terrain

Accounting for all these factors, they are unlikely to have covered more than 20 miles per day. Based on the assumption of a 1000 mile journey, we can make this calculation: 1000 miles ÷ 20 miles per day = 50 days. Add in stops in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and taking a ‘minor road’ home, the total journey out and back would be around 120 days, close to 4 months.

So, from the options on offer in the question, the nearest and therefore best answer for how long it took for the wise men to reach Jesus (just the outward journey) is 50 days.

Question 4 asks about the names of the wise men, offering a couple of options or the response ‘We don’t know’. When I asked this question in church, some voted for ‘Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar’, no-one for ‘Matt, Tommy, and Alex’, and most for ‘We don’t know’. The correct answer is ‘We don’t know’.

The Bible never tells us the names of the wise men. It’s unlikely Mary, Joseph or anyone around them asked them. For one thing they came from Persia. For another they spoke a different language. For yet another, they were eminent people, scholars of philosophy, medicine and the natural world, possibly advisors to Persian kings. You don’t probe people like that for personal information.

But, since those times, nothing has stopped people inventing names for them. The ancient names I included first appeared in an 8th century chronicle known as the Excerpta latina barbari asBithisarea, Melichior, and Gathaspa, though that religious chronicle is a Latin translation from a lost Greek manuscript written some 200 years earlier. So, at best, those names were created hundreds of years after the wise men visited Jesus. Wikipedia summarises some other options:

“Within Eastern Christianity, the Magi have varied names. Among Syrian Christians, they are Larvandad, Gushnasaph, and Hormisdas, which are approximations of typical Zoroastrian names, in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, they are Hor, Karsudan, and Basanater, while Armenian Catholics have Kagpha, Badadakharida and Badadilma.”

People seem fond of attributing names to mysterious people. But all names associated with the wise men of Jesus’ time are inventions. You may have wondered why the names of ‘Matt, Tommy and Alex’ were an option? Well, they were wise men. Matt Busby, Tommy Docherty, and Alex Ferguson were all very successful managers of the English football team Manchester United.[1]

Question 5 is slightly complicated. It lists the wise men’s gifts and the significance of those gifts. But two of the gifts have the wrong significance. Only one of the three is correct. But which one?

The first two are mixed up. Gold was not used in worship, nor was frankincense a gift for royalty. I should have written that gold was a gift for a king because then – as now – gold was precious and expensive, chosen by the wise men as a gift for Jesus in recognition that he was King of the Jews (and, indeed, of all people). Frankincense is a sweet, fragrant resin whose aroma is used in worship.[2] It was also expensive, but a worthy and appropriate gift for one who should be worshipped.

The only correct description of a wise man’s gift, then, was the third – that myrrh is an embalming oil used after death. Myrrh is a yellow, fragrant, sap-like resin that oozes from cuts in the bark of certain trees. Many hold it to offer medicinal benefits – and it can be an ingredient in ‘natural’ toothpastes – but scientists and doctors generally urge caution and want further studies about medical use of myrrh. In Jesus’ time, though, myrrh had antiseptic, preservative, and aromatic properties which is why it was used to embalm a dead body.

But embalming oil is a strange gift to be brought to the infant Jesus. Unless, as many think, this is the first hint that the baby born to Mary had a destiny related to his death. In our day we imagine that a young child will achieve great things during a long lifetime. But Jesus would not have a long lifetime. He would accomplish God’s will by accepting death in his early thirties. This child had a unique purpose, and the gift of myrrh foretold it would be fulfilled by laying down his life.

Question 6 is both humorous and serious in asking why the wise men took a different route for their journey home. We can discard the first two options – these wise men weren’t interested in sightseeing nor would students of the stars get confused and go west instead of east.

Options ‘3’ and ‘4’ are probably both true. The Bible provides only brief information about why the wise men’s plans changed: “And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.” (Matthew 2:12)

The nearest correct answer is probably number ‘3’, that they didn’t want Herod to know where Jesus was. Why? Because he might kill him. When the wise men met Herod before, he told them to search out the child and then report his location to him “so that I too may go and worship him”. (Matthew 2:8) The wise men weren’t fooled. From all they knew about Herod, he was never going to worship Jesus. If this baby was King of the Jews, he was Herod’s rival and thus a target for assassination. To return to Herod’s palace would have meant imprisonment and torture for the wise men until they revealed Jesus’ whereabouts. So they made sure that could not happen.

The option ‘4’ answer – that failure to report to Herod meant they were now being hunted – will also be true. When they didn’t return to tell where Jesus was, we know Herod was “furious” (Matthew 2: 16) and this king was notorious for his cruelty towards those who displeased him. When I wrote before about Herod’s edict to kill all the boys aged under two around Bethlehem, I explained just how cruel Herod could be:

 The horrific truth about King Herod is that these deaths in Bethlehem were not the greatest evil of his reign. All his life he’d done terrible things. Early in his rule he’d killed off half the Jewish Sanhedrin (the ruling court for the Jews). Later he’d had 300 of his court officers put to death. He also murdered his mother-in-law, his wife, and three of his sons. Finally, when he lay dying, he gave orders that one member of each family in Israel was to be killed. Why? To guarantee the nation would be mourning at the time he died. (Thankfully, with Herod dead, that last order was never carried out.) Herod has been described as “a man of ruthless cruelty…”. He certainly was. (From: https://occasionallywise.com/2025/01/25/doubly-wise-men/)

The wise men had outwitted and frustrated Herod, so his kill-squads would be hunting for them. Had they not taken another route, they would never have got home.

Part 3  Reflection

The wise men are usually portrayed as lovable and loyal men who made a long journey to give gifts to baby Jesus, which is probably why giving gifts made its way into Christmas celebrations. It’s all very lovely.

What is little recognised is the immense faith, cost and risk involved for those wise men to find Jesus. Here is my summary:

  • Their guidance to travel came from seeing a star in the sky. It takes great faith to launch out on a long journey based just on that.
  • They knew they would find only a baby, not a new ruler already established in a palace. But still they went because they believed this baby was like no other: the child God had placed on earth to rule over all people.
  • They ventured into unknown countryside. They would never have travelled so far west before. They couldn’t know how long the journey would take or the hazards they’d face. But they set off anyway.
  • The expedition would have been at great expense. They needed camels, servants, tents and other supplies. And the presents they carried were very costly, but they were presents worthy of putting before a new king.
  • Groups like theirs were often the target of thieves who attacked camel trains moving slowly along the main routes. The wise men and their attendants were in constant danger of being robbed and killed.
  • Having found Jesus, they refused Herod’s command to reveal Jesus’ location – that decision could have cost them everything.

Despite all that, the wise men risked their lives and their riches in order to bow before Jesus and present their gifts. All those who profess to follow Jesus, including me, need to ask what we are willing to give up to worship and serve Jesus.

As General Director of a large mission agency, I visited many poor or damaged communities. One of those was high up a mountain on a small island on the west edge of Indonesia, not long after the major tsunami hit the area in 2004. I was told that the residents of the village we would visit were deeply impoverished – $1 a day workers. There was a small church in that village, and my role was to encourage and help where possible.

Along with a colleague and a few locals, we rented a ‘bus’, which was no more than the size of a VW camper van. The early travel into the foothills of the mountain was not especially difficult, but before long we moved from a made-up road to an earth track. It quickly became steeper and steeper, and muddier and muddier. On left and right were deep valleys. A small slide sideways and we’d be gone. Then, looking ahead, I thought our journey could not continue because the track had collapsed down into a valley. Our driver was undaunted. He found a marginally navigable path down into the valley, across a small river, and then back up to rejoin the main track beyond the collapsed section. We did that several times.

Then we really came to a halt. A complete halt. Our ‘bus’ had broken down. The engine had stopped and refused to restart. We clambered out to be met by a wall of heat. The Equator runs right through Indonesia, and daytime heat, even part-way up a mountain, is severe. It was impossibly hot to stay in our broken down bus behind glass, but it was little better outside since there was almost no shelter. There was no choice really, so for nearly three hours we waited at the side of the road in baking sun for another ‘bus’ to rescue us. Finally another camper van style vehicle arrived, we climbed in and went on our way twisting and sliding, always within inches of disaster.

The people of the village and surroundings had been told we’d arrive during the afternoon. Now it was late afternoon and we were only part way up the mountain. We would not get to the village until mid evening, hours after dark. They would all have gone home. But they hadn’t. As we finally pulled in it was obvious no-one had left. Everyone had waited for us.

I was met by the pastor, a young man no more than 20 years old. He was overjoyed that we had come to his village and to his church. The fact that we’d made that tortuous journey clearly mattered to him and his people. After we had eaten some food, the pastor asked if I would like to see where he lived and studied. Of course I would. He pulled back a curtain behind the church platform to reveal a small area with a blanket on the floor as his bed, and what looked like a school desk as the place where he worked. There may have been a box in which he kept his few clothes. He had no other possessions and no other home. His pay? Almost nothing, though the congregation provided his meals. The pastor was thankful for the privilege of serving his church. I was thankful they had a young man such as him as their pastor.

It was now very late, but everyone gathered for the church service. The pastor told me I would preach and afterwards cast out demons from three women. I was used to preaching but casting out demons was not in my normal church ‘order of service’. Nevertheless I nodded, and the service began. I preached with an interpreter, sticking to short sentences and avoiding references to events or situations beyond the understanding of these people. It seemed to go well. Towards the end of the service, the three women were brought to me, and with some difficulty I spoke words over each of them to set them free from the work of the devil. That apparently went well too. The women had been helped.

The village, of course, had no street lights so we stepped out into total darkness, and climbed into our bus for the return journey. Then we faced our latest and greatest problem. The headlights on the bus would not work. Nothing the driver did could make those lights shine. I resigned myself to spending the night somewhere in the village. But our driver was determined to get his bus and passengers down the mountain. His young assistant, aged about 15, was given a hand torch (a flashlight) and told to sit on the roof of the bus and light our path. That was crazy. The lad would almost certainly be thrown off the roof as we swung from side to side going down the bumpy and twisty road, and I was sure the light from his torch would not show us more than a few yards ahead. But off we set. The assistant’s torch was as feeble as I predicted, but by going very slowly the driver kept us on the track. Despite many hair-raising moments we crawled down that mountain safely.

Next morning I thought through the events of the day before. Gradually those thoughts did not centre on my risk, or my discomfort, or my potential demise. The tortuous journey was the event of just one day, one tiny part of my life. That was as nothing in hardship compared to what the 20-year-old pastor experienced as night after night he slept on a blanket on the floor, and day after day ministered to desperately poor villagers. He had accepted God’s call to serve in a remote village – no health care, no backup, no pay, no normal accommodation. There was no way he was comfortable. But he did not expect to be. His life was dedicated to worshipping and following Jesus no matter how great the cost. Jesus had given his life for him, and now he was giving his life for Jesus. That young man deeply challenged me.

The wise men risked everything to find Jesus. For those of us who, in any sense, have found Jesus, how much risk, hardship and sacrifice are we accepting to serve the one who came to be our king and our saviour?

[1] And they were all Scottish!

[2] Frankincense is still used today in worship but also in aromatherapy, skincare, and other traditional forms of medicine. It is considered by some but not all to have qualities to manage conditions like inflammation.

Doubly wise men

If I was writing a novel about the birth of God’s Son, I would not have him born in a stable, laid in an animals’ food trough, make his first visitors people with low status like shepherds, and later have him worshipped by people with uncertain beliefs who arrived from a foreign land. But that is the Christmas story as given in the Bible.

Today we call the people from another land ‘wise men’ or ‘kings’. They were wise men but almost certainly not kings. The New Testament story of the wise men comes from the gospel writer Matthew (chapter 2). He wrote in Greek, and he describe the visitors as magi, the plural form of the word magos. A lexicon (dictionary) will give the meaning of magos as sage, magician or sorcerer. Those definitions are not wrong, but that doesn’t mean each is appropriate for the men who visited Jesus. I will explain.

The Magi were a Median tribe, part of the Persian empire. They were people with great learning and understanding, so much so that as priests they became advisors to Persian kings. Hence it’s right to describe them as ‘wise men’. Part of their wisdom came from study of old disciplines such as philosophy, medicine and the natural world. The natural world included the stars which at least some magi observed very carefully.

These were the magi who travelled many miles to worship Jesus. They likely held ideas many of us would regard as strange, but they were good men, holy men. Decades or centuries later, the word magos also became used for less worthy people: sorcerers, fortune-tellers, magicians. (In fact, our word ‘magic’ comes from magos.) But there is no sign at all that the magi Matthew writes about were sorcerers or magicians. They were men who studied the stars, and one night they saw a star rise in the sky. We don’t know how, but they understood that star meant God had sent a new-born baby to be King of the Jews.

Where did the Magi[1] come from?

We know only that they came from the east. There has been no shortage of speculation about where exactly they travelled from. If you look on a modern map, then east of Israel are countries such as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and eventually China. But ancient Persia – modern day Iran – is a very likely host country for magi such as the visitors to Jesus. In the centuries before Christ, Persia was vast in size. Its borders stretched from countries like those we now call Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine right across to parts of India, and also south into Egypt. By the time of Christ it was smaller, but still large. And a natural home for magi.

How far did they travel to find Jesus?

Since no-one knows precisely where these Magi made their home, the guesses of how far they journeyed to Jerusalem and then Bethlehem range from 500 miles up to 1200 miles. Starting from homes anywhere between those numbers means they had a very long journey. And, in those days, there were no cars, no trains, no planes, and no motorway standard roads.

How long did the journey take to get to Jesus and then back home?

We are not told, but we can assume that the wise men rode on camels. It’s highly likely, though, that they travelled as part of a larger party, and their attendants will have walked. Given the terrain, sometimes difficult weather, and the need of rest stops for both people and camels, they are unlikely to have covered more than 20 miles per day. If we assume their journey to Bethlehem was 1000 miles, we can make this calculation: 1000 miles ÷ 20 miles per day = 50 days. For the round trip, you should add in stops in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and going home by a ‘minor road’. That means the journey out and back would take around 120 days, close to 4 months.

That is a long time to be away from home to visit a child you knew about only because of a star in the sky. The expenses (camels, servants, supplies) would be high. The risk – for there were many bandits dedicated to robbing rich travellers – was immense.

Put all this together, and it’s clear that these Magi made a major commitment of their lives for this journey. They saw a sign, and they went. All so they could kneel and give gifts to a very special child.

How many Magi were there?

Down the centuries, people have imagined there were three wise men. Paintings have always portrayed three, and later legend gave them names: Gaspar (or Caspar), Melchior, and Balthasar. Some have thought they represented the three continents recognised in ancient times, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

There may have been three wise men, but the gospel writer Matthew either did not know or was not interested in details of that kind. So their names, their origins, and even their number are all much later speculation. So, why has it been traditional to believe there were three wise men? Simply because three gifts are mentioned: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But three gifts doesn’t prove there were three givers. Perhaps six, or eight, or ten magi all contributed to these gifts. We simply don’t know how many wise men there were.

Did they kneel before the manger to worship Jesus?

Works of art usually show these wise and wealthy men bowing humbly before Jesus in the manger. It’s a moving scene.

But they didn’t. and they didn’t because Jesus was no longer in a manger in a stable. We know that for two reasons. One is that Matthew (2: 11) wrote that the wise men visited Jesus in a house. The word Matthew used was the Greek oikos and oikos always means a dwelling, a place of human habitation. It would never be used for a cave or stable.

The second reason we know the wise men never went to the stable is that by the time the wise men could have arrived to worship Jesus he would be several months old. Joseph and Mary with Jesus will have continued to live in Bethlehem, but, understandably, not in a stable. Two factors indicate the time lapse before the visit of these Magi.

First, the time it took for them to travel. the wise men told Herod they had seen the star rise “of the one who has been born king of the Jews”. (2: 1-2) The child from God had been born, and they must pay him homage. So, after Jesus’ birth, they prepared for their journey, and then rode or walked many months to reach Jerusalem and then Bethlehem.

Second, the age of the children Herod ordered to be killed. What the wise men told King Herod had troubled him deeply. He hated the idea that another king had been born. So, when the Magi never returned to his palace to report Jesus’ exact whereabouts, Herod ordered his troops to slaughter all the boys born in or near Bethlehem “who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi”. (2: 16) Matthew is quite specific that Herod targeted the boys born in Bethlehem within the time frame the wise men had given. That included those born up to two years previously.

Given these factors, the evidence is that considerable time elapsed before the wise men arrived. They were not visiting a newborn baby.

Is it not odd that holy men with generally contrary beliefs came to worship Jesus?

Yes, it does seem strange. In fact, it is also surprising that shepherds were the first to visit after Jesus’ birth. In those times, shepherds were not held in high regard. Spending day and night guarding their flocks meant they often failed to observe the ceremonial laws. But, in their favour, they were Jews, members of God’s ancient people.

The wise men were not Jews. We know they had high rank and considerable wealth because their gifts were expensive. But they observed no Jewish laws and had no part in Jewish heritage. They came, honoured Jesus, and then they disappear completely from the story. There is no suggestion they became Jesus’ disciples. Our only information is that these were magi from another land, from a wholly different belief system, who saw a sign in the heavenlies which they rightly interpreted as indicating the birth of the child who would become king of the Jews, and they came to worship him. It is remarkable that God revealed such news to them, and also remarkable that they made a long, arduous and risky journey to find Jesus and when “they saw the child with his mother Mary… they bowed down and worshipped him.” (2: 11)

Now, none of that could have happened unless these Magi already believed in God. Their ideas will have been mixed with other beliefs that didn’t belong with either Judaism or (what became) Christianity, but they had sufficient faith in God to understand he was speaking to them by a special star in the sky. When that happened, they didn’t just stand back in amazement; they knew God wanted them to find this special child, and when they did they worshipped him. These were men who sought God, and God brought them nearer to himself by leading them to his Son so they could worship him. The lessons I take from that is that God can and will do whatever he wants with whomever he wants, and does remarkable things to draw people to himself.

But didn’t the wise men put Jesus at risk because of their visit?

Yes, looked at from a human perspective, they did put Jesus at risk. It’s a curious case of doing what was right by going to find Jesus, but in doing so they triggered Herod’s jealousy and murderous actions.

Let us be very clear: at no point did these Magi do wrong. They were right to make their long journey to worship Jesus, and, with the little they knew, it was understandable they went first to the royal palace to inquire about the birth of a new king of the Jews. They could not have known how alarming that would be to King Herod. And it was Herod who decided he must eliminate this risk to his throne. When he couldn’t find Jesus, he ordered (what we now call) the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ around Bethlehem.

Someone making a harsh judgment could say those two things – their visit and contact with Herod – cost the lives of many children. That person might say it would have been better if the wise men had never come.

However, the obvious truth is that the wise men did not motivate Herod to murder Jesus, nor his eventual decision to kill the young male children of Bethlehem. Herod, and Herod alone, is responsible for these dreadful deeds.

The horrific truth about King Herod is that these deaths in Bethlehem were not the greatest evil of his reign. All his life he’d done terrible things. Early in his rule he’d killed off half the Jewish Sanhedrin (the ruling court for the Jews). Later he’d had 300 of his court officers put to death. He also murdered his mother-in-law, his wife, and three of his sons. Finally, when he lay dying, he gave orders that one member of each family in Israel was to be killed. Why? To guarantee the nation would be mourning at the time he died. (Thankfully, with Herod dead, that last order was never carried out.) Herod has been described as “a man of ruthless cruelty…”. He certainly was.

This world has always had Herods, people with great power but few morals, people who will do anything to promote their interests, people who think nothing of sacrificing others to benefit themselves. That was true in the ancient world, true in the Middle Ages, true in modern times. Terrible people have always done terrible things to innocents who have done nothing to deserve it. In King Herod’s case his fear and jealousy were aroused by the visit of the Magi, but the wicked crimes that followed were Herod’s doing and Herod’s alone.

Did the wise men put their lives at risk by failing to return to Herod?

Yes, they certainly did. The Magi and their whole party might have been put to death by Herod’s soldiers.

After finding Jesus, the Magi were supposed to return to King Herod and reveal Jesus’ precise location in Bethlehem. He was very clear: “Report to me!” There was no option to refuse. This was a tyrant’s command, and failure to obey would cost them their lives.

The Magi had little time to consider their options. Bethlehem is only six miles from Jerusalem. That was only half a day’s walk, and Herod knew they could go one day and be back in his palace the next. Even if they’d stayed in Bethlehem for a couple of days, it needn’t be long before they stood in front of Herod again, this time with details of where the special baby could be found.

Herod, of course, had lied about why he wanted that information. He’d said he wanted to go and worship the child too. (2: 8) But the Magi got another divine message, this time a warning in a dream not to return to the palace, so they avoided Jerusalem and Herod, and took a back road to get out of the country.

That took great courage. First, they knew that Herod was a viciously cruel ruler who never tolerated disobedience. Second, he would certainly have them put to death if he caught them. Third, the wise men and their party could not journey inconspicuously. Herod’s soldiers would be hunting for them, and the local people might get a reward for revealing their whereabouts. There was a strong likelihood they’d be seen, reported, captured, and executed. Despite the risk, they took another route and headed home. It was a choice others would not have made.

So the wise men return to the east. But Jesus, of course, was still Herod’s target, and next time we’ll see how Joseph, Mary and Jesus became refugees who fled for their lives.

Last word on the wise men I think of these Magi as doubly wise men. First, they recognised God’s sign in the stars, and made an arduous and hazardous journey to worship a young child. They had the wisdom to obey a heavenly authority. Second, they then had the wisdom to disobey an earthly authority, accepting that decision could cost them their lives. But God’s priority was always their priority. You can never be wiser than that.

[1] I am giving an initial capital to Magi when referring directly to ‘the Magi’ of Matthew’s gospel, but using the lower case magi when referring to these priestly people more generally.