We Three Kings...

Your phone call yesterday got me to thinking…so I started writing.

Lets begin with an acquaintance of Sir Isaac Newton.  His name was Edmund Halley.  Edmund was doing his best to mathematically prove some of the work done by Johannes Kepler who had published his thoughts on how planets move within a solar system.  Upon a visit, Mr. Halley discovered that Sir Newton had already solved all the math problems but had yet to let anyone know about it.  So, Mr. Halley convinced Sir Newton to write it all down and then Mr. Halley published the whole thing at his own expense.  The book was called Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and is regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science.

In 1682 Mr. Halley saw a comet which prompted him to begin some research and to collect data about appearances of other comets in the past.  With the data that he collected and the mathematical proofs that Sir Newton had developed…Mr. Halley was the first person to predict that a specific comet would reappear and even when…it would reappear!  Years later his calculations proved accurate when Halley’s comet appeared in the night sky.  Other astronomers wanted to know when in history this comet had appeared and if anyone had noticed..so they worked the math backward.  They discovered that Halley’s comet had appeared in the night sky in the year 11 B.C. which prompted some to wonder if it was the star that the three wise men followed to find the Christ child.

This leads to a question:  How does an event seen in the sky convey knowledge of earthly events?  The answer begins in Genesis when we see that a mans life is calculated in years.  And then on through Genesis 8 where Noah is mentioned as observing months and a specific number of days in a given month.  This knowledge of times and seasons was obviously transferred to Noah’s sons and his grandsons.  It is one of Noah’s grandsons…Nimrod…who established Babylon somewhere around 2300 B.C. and it is to Babylon where the roots of Astrology lead.

It is the Babylonians that seem to have had some of the first understandings of the movements within the solar system.  And it is the Babylonians that seem to have been the first to assign meanings to those movements.   Approximately 1700 years later…Babylon still exists and is very powerful in the world.  Its King is Nebuchadnezzar and in 605 B.C. he invades Israel and among the captives is a kid named Daniel.  The child is raised in the kings household and taught Babylonian culture which among other things would have been 1700 years of mysticism surrounding the movements in the solar system.

Because of Scriptural and historical accounts we know what happened to Daniel in his life.  We know that God used him mightily by revealing hidden things to him.  We also know that the Magi existed at that time and that Daniel was placed in charge of them.  The magi were ethnically oriented and were related to the people that today we call the “Kurds” in Iraq.  The Magi didn’t appreciate that a Hebrew had been placed in charge over them and this led to the whole “Lions Den” ordeal.

So then, the Magi who followed the star to the Christ child belonged to this sect.  They were not kings…that idea came later in medieval times.  There may have been more than 3…the scripture doesn’t specify…..And they arrived when Jesus was two years old….not at the scene of His birth in a manger.  We don’t know their names…different cultures have given different names to them.

I think its important to note a couple of things:

1.    The Magi travelled to Jerusalem and their appearance caused a stir…so much so, that even the king was informed of their arrival and their quest.  Think about it…if it was just a few guys that arrived in town..would it be noteworthy to the King?  Why would the Kings advisors waste his time?  I think it is much more likely that the Magi arrived accompanied by a whole caravan of different types of people…servants?...wives?..concubines?  cooks? And enough camels for their journey.  I think that the king made it his business to know who exactly these people were.

2.   Their journey was between 1000 and 1200 miles and could have taken a year or more.  Additionally, the time between when they saw the star and the time that they actually left…required enough time to prepare for an odyssey of unknowns.  They didn’t know how far or where or how long it was going to take….but they knew one thing for sure…they were seeing what is described as a star and they were sure they needed to follow it.  I personally believe that the star appeared at the moment of Jesus’ birth.  Remember, Jesus was two years old when the Magi visited him and King Herod had inquired of the Magi when the star had appeared…He then proceeded to kill all male children two years old and younger.

3.    The Magi observed and followed a star for more than a year and probably two years.  The star eventually led them to the exact house where Jesus was.  How did a star do this?  Stars in the sky do not represent a fixed address on earth.  Which is why some have said that the star must have been a comet because it moved…but the same argument applies….a comet cannot pinpoint an exact house in a specific city.  I believe that the “star” that the Magi followed was much like the sign that Moses and the Israelites followed…a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night .  I don’t believe that the Magi followed pillars of cloud and fire…I believe they followed what they could only describe as a star…they wouldn’t have had any other words to describe a moving light in the sky.  But I think that the light was close enough that it could guide to a specific house in a specific city.  Think about where you live….and imagine that you had never been there.  If you were only one half mile away from your home….how close would a light have to be to your home for you to be able to know for certain that you had arrived?

Anyway…where should we go from here…I brought up some stuff about astrology…but you let me know.