Why not trace the possible path of the Magi? And what do all these possibly mean?
Perhaps a Christmas thought could be about unity of which the Asean or the other organizations of nations are trying to achieve.
If some things that happened during biblical times are symbolic, as God might have made them to be, even as they are historical, then there are very many significances to the journey of who are believed to be kings of their own lands traveling across the deserts to Bethlehem as guided by a star, to look for the Child.
There have been write-ups and representations from ancient sources of the history of the Three Kings.
They were supposed to be kings of Ind, Chaldea and Persia. But in the Bible, disciple Matthew didn’t say so, neither James. It seems that Herod, to whom they went to ask about the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem, didn’t treat them as kings. There are studies that surmise that the kings were actually priests, also astrologists and were sky-watchers inspired by stars.
It’s also said that there were 12 kings, not just three. Somewhere along the way, in another time, they were said to be four (as seen in some ancient murals). When they became three in several sources, it was perhaps, as some researchers see it, because they were seen as representing the races of men (black-skinned of Africa, Asiatic peoples and Europeans)---in other words, men in all the world. They were even very typical of all men (and the women, I suppose, as understood)---young, middle-aged and older.
So as they seem, the Three Kings revelation in the Bible illustrates God’s wish for a united human race. The three travelers, who were thought by some to be Persian astrologists in ancient times, moved from the east to Jerusalem, as the Bibles says. In Jerusalem, they met, guided by a representation of God’s love, a Star.
Watch how the Star moved. .
The biblical Book of Numbers mentions the prophecy of Balaam about the Star. “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob…”
Throughout the East, the Star that the Magi were guided by became much awaited by all.
When the Star first appeared to the three kings---Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar (Caspar)---and announced to them the birth of Christ, the three didn’t know each other, nor knew each one’s motive for being there with the two others. But they came together to look for the Child, as though they knew exactly why. Matthew wrote that, “the star which they had seen in the east went before them till it came to rest over the place where the child was.”
It grew bright, and brighter still as the men moved nearer the shack. It stopped when they finally found the Child and offered their gifts of perfumes, incense and precious metal.
In the small shack in Bethlehem, the Star where it stopped burned as bright as the sun would light up the night. After Jesus’ birth, it ascended farther up, burning much brighter, without moving, its sparkling lines of beams stirring gently.
Then the Star followed each of the blessed kings home to their peoples, stood still when they rested, moved forward when they advanced, made virtues real in their lives. They rode over rocks, rivers, hills and rode as if nothing was dangerous to them in the journey. As they moved, the Star moved.
When Christ was born, say the believers, there was peace throughout the world. There was peace in places where no one was shut out at any time anywhere, no one cursed, no one disdained.
In the Bible, Matthew didn’t mention the strangers’ names, or how many they were. Whether kings or astrologists, or simple Gentile folks in breeches, caps and capes, the Three Kings brought with them the lesson of love for all men and created in your mind, say, a Jew in love with an Arab.
It may be that peace in the world could start with love between strangers as in the story of all the world’s Melchiors, Gaspars and Balthazars.
