We Three Kings

Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.
 
The star was so beautiful, large and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere,
And by this they knew that the coming was near
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.
 
– The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
            
The story of the Three Kings (or Magi or Wise Men), recounted in Matthew 2, at once both simple and thrilling, has something of a fantastical quality about it.
 
Jesus Christ, the newborn king of the Jews, is said to be born in Bethlehem of Judea, the birthplace of the iconic King David but an otherwise unnoticed outpost of the vastly powerful Roman Empire, under the reign of the pretender king and imperial puppet, Herod. Then, lo and behold, three magi, who hailed from the mysterious eastern lands beyond the Empire in Persia, arrive after their long journey to pay homage not to Herod or to Caesar Augustus but to the infant in the manger. 
 
And how were the wise men led to Christ? Because they “have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him” (Matt 2:2). The wise men, then, are led to worship the true King and Messiah because they have seen a star, but not just any star; they saw his star.
 
The question of the star, seen from the East but residing in the West above Bethlehem, is a fascinating one, for stars are manifestly common but nonetheless wonderfully sublime. Stars fill the night sky of every land, people, and nation, but regardless of whether we lived in the time of Christ or today, they elicit wonder and awe. Today, we know that stars are distant suns, whose light has traveled many lightyears to reach our feeble eyes, and we seek to travel among them – as we do among forests and valleys – as the final frontier. And yet, even for us modern folk, the stars often stop us in our tracks when we pause long enough to behold them, not as objects of study but as natural wonders.
 
As the poet Walt Whitman writes:
 
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
 
The magi, however, did not look to this Western star because they were beholden by its beauty but because it was – to them – a sign, a clue, that God was acting for the good of the human race in a new and profound way. God was in search of man, so, now, they would go in search of God.
 
As was mentioned above, these three wise men are also sometimes called ‘magi,’ for the Greek term used in the Gospel of Matthew to denote them is μάγοι. In ancient times, μάγοι, or magi, were members of a Persian priestly class; thus, they were most likely pagan priests. But even more importantly, they were seekers of the truth, seekers of God, even though they were outside of Israel and Israel’s covenant with the one true God. Unsatisfied with the knowledge and worship of God available to them, they sought to encounter him as he really is in the flesh. As Pope Benedict XVI writes in Jesus of Nazareth: Infancy Narratives, “[T]hey were people of inner unrest, people of hope, people on the lookout for the true star of salvation… They represent the journeying of humanity toward Christ. They initiate a procession that continues throughout history.”
 
In our own day, our lives are as replete with competing claims to human happiness and fulfillment as there are stars in the sky. At times, it can be rather overwhelming and, ironically, contribute to a pervasive unhappiness. We look to the many lights around us and, having picked out the one that seems closest or best, we follow that star hoping that we will find rest by following its light. But as so often happens, having arrived at our destination, we realize that nothing was actually there, leaving us to begin again, only now we begin to lose hope that any of the many lights available to us could lead anywhere of ultimate value and worth.
 
In the midst of all of this, though, the story of the Magi is one that inspires hope, both for ourselves and our loved ones. We all find ourselves, at one point or another, wandering in a remote and unfamiliar place because we have followed the wrong star. Like the pagan Magi, we can sometimes find ourselves wrapped up in the confusion of false oracles and counterfeit wisdom, uncertain of where to turn next.
 
And yet, as the story of the Three Magi demonstrates, even there the light of Christ shines forth, signaling the correct path for us to find He who is the source of all life and happiness. All we need to do is pause long enough to look upwards, see the goodness and beauty of Christ, and have the courage and faith to set out once again. We, too, can find God because He has first found us, and He continues to find us even in the night of human life.
 
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).
​
--

Jordan Haddad, Ph. D., is a Professor of Dogmatic Theology at Notre Dame Seminary and the President of the St. Louis IX Art Society.