Epiphany - being wise
Matthew 2: 1-12, Isaiah 60: 1-6 Just how wise are the wise men? We don’t know quite where they have come from, or how far they have travelled. We are not told how their families and friends reacted to them starting out on their strange journey. Maybe they all thought these so-called wise men were being immensely foolish. But they set off, following a star, looking for a king. Once they arrive in the land of Judah their wisdom seems to fail them – they stop following the star and because they are looking for a king they look first in the obvious, but the wrong place. They go to the royal palace in the capital of Judah, Jerusalem, asking to see the new-born ‘king of the Jews’. For ‘Wise men’ they act in a rather stupid way, exciting the interest and the anger of the actual King of Judah – Herod. But, interested in finding and eliminating the opposition, he asks his own advisors where the child is to be born and receives the prophecy “In Bethlehem”...