You have to admire those Wise Men. We don’t really know how long they travelled or how far. But it wasn’t just a few miles or a few days. Most probably a year or two or longer. They followed a star and their beliefs. It was not an easy journey. They were doing something that they most likely had not done before. They had to give up a lot to make the journey. They had to reorient their lives for a while in order to complete the mission. They had to do something extraordinary. They had to think and act outside of the box, as we say.
All of us find it difficult to uproot ourselves and do something different, something that doesn’t necessarily fit our normal way of thinking or acting, to act on faith and take an unknown route toward what we believe we are called to do.
The Wise Men did just that. The end of their journey must certainly have surprised them. Here was a newborn king, but he was only an infant, and in a manger without palace or servants or any semblance of royalty. Totally different from what they expected.
And they prostrated themselves and only then offered their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Pagans though they were, they knew God when they saw him. And they had the good sense to listen to their dreams and go home by a different route, thereby demonstrating their fidelity to the new king.
In doing so, the whole world came to the light.
