Wise Men

Happy New Year!

As we prepare for Epiphany Sunday, I want to share with you a reflection from Martin Luther on the wise men from a collection of his sermons in Martin Luther’s Christmas Book edited by Roland H. Bainton. Here’s what Luther preached:

“When they had heard the king, [the Wise Men] departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, the rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”

Now the Wise Men had the faith to follow the word of the Prophet Micah. They were not offended that the king was not born in Jerusalem. They left the Temple and went to the cow stall.

If I had been there, I would have stayed in the Temple and said: “God dwells here and if the Child is to be found anywhere in the world, it will be where all the priests are gathered and God is served.” We may profit from the example of these heathen, who, took no offense when directed from Jerusalem, the great city, to little Bethlehem. They followed the Word, and God comforted them by putting back the star, which led them now to Bethlehem and to the very door where the young Child lay.

Here the Evangelist (the writer of Matthew’s gospel) shows us the true nature of faith, how they believed simply what they had not seen and held fast to the Word. That is why God brought them from their land to where they should hear the Word, but God let them first fall into error and bewilderment. They thought the Child would be born in the capital, Jerusalem, and that is where they went. Then the star left them and no one in the city so much as knew that a king was to be born. The Wise Men supposed that he would be born in circumstances of pomp like the son of a potentate. God did not leave them long in their error but showed them through the Scripture that they would not find him as they supposed in the big city, but in a little village, and he directed them to the royal town of Bethlehem.