The big story!

What’s the famous bumper sticker/church sign say? “Wise men still follow Him!” Sure they do, but not in threes. One of my biggest pet peeves in Christian culture is how badly Jesus birth is depicted in Nativity sets. A barn, with animals and three kings from the east. I deal with the barn and animals thing in an earlier post, so check out the archives for that one. But what I want to deal with today is these “three” wise guys. Let us just put this into context: They wouldn’t have been so “wise” if it was just the three of them traveling from the Far East! There is a certain wow factor that can be gained from this story, even if you believe it was just three guys that came to see the little baby. That would be impressive in it’s self. But for their own survival they would have had to travel in a large caravan. If the little statues are correct, it would have been easy for robbers and thieves to recognize the fact these guys were loaded. If it had been just three guys they would have been easy pickens for one or two robbers. The journey they took was long and treacherous. There weren’t exits and road stops every three miles like are on our highways. They may have gone days with out seeing anyone else on their route. Besides the journey being dangerous, let’s talk about their encounter with Herod. This was a bad King. The dude was ruthless to say the least. He would have made Saddam look like Mickey Mouse. In my opinion they had to be traveling in a large group, because for some reason Herod seems intimidated by their presence. Not just because these guys were foreigners who knew nothing of the Hebrew scripture but where looking for the Jewish king, but because I’m sure they had plenty of slaves, servants, priest and guards of their own traveling with them. It was a large group of people coming through town and everyone in Jerusalem had heard about them. Herod could have offed three guys with out many people knowing it, but to try and kill a large group of maybe seventy to a hundred people, would have been a hard thing to cover up. The people of Jerusalem know why these guys where in town and if Herod had killed their whole party, it would have been obvious to the people he was afraid of the news these wise men were bringing. So why are there just three “wise” men. Well it of course has to do with the fact that only three gifts were mentioned as being brought to Jesus (gold, frankincense and myrrh.) I don’t know the validity of this story, but someone once told me that it was Martin Luther who made the first nativity set, as a way to share the story with little children. So he must have simplified the story so there weren’t as many pieces. This would help him tell the story quicker and be easier to carry around. Can you imagine your nativity set on the mantel of your fireplace with an additional ten Sheppard’s, a large seventy-piece caravan and a couple hundred (a host) angles? The mantel would fall off the wall. My problem with the nativity set is it takes away from the awe and majesty of what was truly taking place at the time of Jesus birth. This was definitely a huge event. I’m sure if Martin Luther were around today the nativity would look more like a 570 piece Lego set. Ugh, I hate putting those things together! So lets read this chapter of Jesus story and try not minimulize the grandeur of what was happening.