Today, we encounter the much-loved story of the wise men who travel from the East to worship the child born of Mary in the little town of Bethlehem. The shepherds have come and gone, the angelic host proclaiming “Peace on Earth” have done their work, and now it is time for people far outside the scope of the ancient Israelites to come and see this great working of God. This story has blossomed throughout the years to be something quite different than it seems to be originally intended. There is the old Christmas carol, “We Three Kings from Orient Are,” which had generations thinking these were kings who came to worship. Of course, you can still buy Christmas cards featuring the three on camels following the star emblazoned with the words: “Wise Men Still Seek Him.” We like that, do we not? I mean, if we are here, if we have come seeking the child born of Mary, that must mean we too are wise. And who does not want that title? It feels good to be one of the wise ones seeking this great gift from God.

But I fear this is far different from how Matthew’s original readers would have received this story. In fact, if we try to recapture how they might have first received this news, we can better understand the importance of such a strange turn of events. The text begins by saying, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.”  We hear those words, the title “wise men,” and think of certain things. Perhaps you think of thoughtful men of science applying their skills to discern and predict the happenings of our age. This is a call to logic and understanding. But the word used here is “magi.” You have probably heard of that. Magi is not unheard of in Scripture. In fact, concerning the workings of God, the Magi are regularly those who fail to comprehend what He is doing. In Daniel 2, when King Nebuchadnezzar has his dream and cannot sleep, he calls together “the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers” to tell the king his dreams. The Greek translation of magicians is Magi, or in our text today, wise men, and if you recall the story of Daniel, it was not the Magi who could interpret his dream but Daniel, who did so by a revelation of God.

The Magi are the least likely people one might expect to come and seek the Messiah. Of course, they are not seeking Christ, the anointed one promised by God, they are looking for a king, the king of the Jews. King’s courts regularly employed Magi, perhaps looking for a leg up on the competition they come early. But in any case, they head to the palace in Jerusalem and are given an audience before Herod. Now, Herod is not pleased to hear this and agrees to help them find the child. He does this so he might destroy any usurper of his power. Note then how it is not their implicit wisdom that gets them to Jesus. Rather, they are directed to the Word of God, to a prophecy from Micah: “And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd My people Israel.” Armed with the Word, the star leads them to the house, where they find the child. There, they present their gifts, and there, these foreigners, the least likely worshippers, end up worshiping the one true King.

It is a crazy story, a narrative not about the wisdom of men but the revelation of God. It is an account of how even those no one would have imagined end up paying homage to the Lord’s Christ. Seeing it in this light, we recognize the power of this story for us. To start with, how many of you in your life leading up to this moment would have thought you would be here? What I mean is, you are here to worship not a God of power and majesty, but one who comes in a manger and dies on a cross. He is a God of forgiveness and love. Was it your wisdom which brought you here? Was it your incredible insight? Or was it something else? Saint Paul famously says, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”

In faith, we have this joy, this confidence and assurance which escapes the world all around us, and we desperately want to share it. You want your children to live in this confidence, and you want your friends to know what it is to walk in the faith, to be connected to the true Vine who gives life and salvation. We all have family members we pray for daily. Perhaps you even weep for those who have either walked away from these gifts or never trusted in them to begin with. And in our desire to share it with them, we often think that if we could make them wise enough, they would believe. If they had the process down, if they prayed the right prayer or read the correct book, then it would move them to seek our Lord. And we get frustrated when it does not play out that way, when smart and honest people, people we love, regularly fail to come to faith.

We tend to forget that our faith, from beginning to end, is a work of God. Many years ago, I remember conversing with a man about the faith in a little watering hole filled with bikers. Well, it did not begin there, it usually does not. It started with a conversation about our past. He was curious why I decided to be a pastor. Was it something I always wanted to do? No, not in the slightest. My decisions and actions throughout my youth should have never led to this moment, but here I was. Looking back, I could now see God at work, quietly operating through means, plain things like people, books, and experiences which directed me this way. He began to confess, which sometimes sounds like bragging, about his life of sin and earthly wisdom that would certainly exclude him from such a thing. He had never set foot in a church outside of the occasional funeral. As we talked, I asked him if he ever imagined he would be in this situation, talking with me in a place like that. And I told him as simply as I could about our Lord, about love and forgiveness beyond imagination.

Now, I would love to tell you he was soon converted, baptized, and joined the Church, but that did not happen, at least it had not happened when I lost touch with him many years ago. But this is the way it goes. God is at work, but we do not have dominion over His work. Your story and my story are not completely unlike that of the Magi. We are here to worship, but there have been many different paths to this moment. God has used people and events in your life to bring us together at the feet of the true King. Perhaps it was an epiphany like a star which changed the course of your life, or maybe it was being confronted with the Word of God. Or perhaps it was a word of love, an act of forgiveness, or the longing for forgiveness that brought you here, but here we are and what a crazy story this has turned out to be.

God’s Word continues to work, steadily guiding and directing us toward the Savior of mankind. He brings us back over and over to the source of hope and assurance. He speaks, we listen. He acts, and we praise, and we want to do what we can for others. We must do what we can to bring this Good News to those who oppose it or have simply never heard it. But it is not our wisdom or strength which can convert anyone. It remains the work of God. This is both terrifying and the greatest of comforts, for it means we do not find Christ, but instead, He finds us. This gives us focus on what we do with the time we have. It is not some evangelism scheme to pack the pews but to love as you have been loved, to forgive as you have been forgiven, and to pray to the Lord of the harvest that His Word will never return empty.