Wise Men Series – Part 1
Today, I will tell you my story.
You can read it in Matthew chapter 2, where we are simply called “wise men from the east.” Over the centuries, many have tried to fill in the details. Some of you think there were three of us, because three gifts are mentioned. Some of you even know our traditional names: Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. But the Scripture does not tell you how many we were, or what we were called. You only know that “wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.”
So I will speak as one of them. I am an unnamed wise man. My name does not matter. The One I found—that is the Name that matters.
Living in darkness while worshipping fire
I come from the lands you now call Iran. In my time, we followed the religion you know as Zoroastrianism. We studied the stars, we read ancient writings, and we were known as magi—wise men, priests, astrologers.
We worshipped fire. In our temples, the sacred flames burned day and night. We believed that fire represented purity, truth, the presence of the divine. Even in your own time, you can still see traces of this. The fire temple in Yazd, Iran, keeps an eternal flame burning, and in India, a similar sacred flame burns in Royapuram, Chennai.
But here is the truth: though we stared at the light of fire, we still walked in spiritual darkness. We were fascinated by created things—the fire, the stars, the movements of the heavens—but we did not know the Creator Himself.
The Scriptures of Israel spoke of people who walked in darkness seeing a great light, of a light shining on those living in the land of deep darkness. I did not know those words then. But I knew the feeling. We had wisdom, but no peace. We had rituals, but no relationship with the living God. We had the fire, but not the true Light.
And then, one night, God took the first step toward us.
Christmas is not humanity climbing up to God. Christmas is God coming down to humanity. Every religion you know tells a story of human beings searching for God. At Christmas, you see a different story—God searching for you. God coming to you. God stepping into your darkness with His own Light.
The tough, relentless journey
It began with a star.
We noticed it because we watched the sky every night. This star was different. Not just brighter—meaningful. To us it spoke of a king, a ruler, someone born in the land of the Jews.
We did our calculations. We searched ancient writings and prophecies. We debated long into the night. The conviction grew: a great King has been born. We must go.
The journey from our land to Judea was long—more than 1,600 kilometres. It took around 10-12 months. We travelled in caravans with camels and servants, moving perhaps twenty or thirty kilometres a day. The journey was tough. The weather was harsh. Some days the sun burned our skin; some nights the cold bit our bones. The terrain was difficult. Bandits watched the roads. We carried valuables and gifts; we were tempting targets.
There were days we were exhausted. There were nights we wondered if we were crazy. Was this star truly a sign from the God of Israel, or had we misread the heavens? We could have turned back. Others might have called us foolish for risking so much to find a child from a people not our own.
But something deeper pulled us forward. A longing we could not explain. A hope we could not shake. Now I know that it was grace drawing us—the God of Israel reaching out to foreigners, to outsiders, to people who did not even know His Name.
When you truly begin to seek the living God, the journey will not always be easy. There will be deserts, questions, doubts, and dangers. But if you are genuinely seeking the true God, do not give up. Keep moving. The God who put the star before us will put His light before you.
Our search was spiritual, but our minds were still earthly
After months of travel, we came near the land of Judea. The star guided us generally westward, but we made one very human assumption: a king must be in a palace.
So, of course, we went to Jerusalem.
We asked anyone who would listen, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose, and we have come to worship Him.”
Our feet were on a spiritual journey, but our minds were still thinking like the world. Kings, to us, meant palaces, power, soldiers, wealth. We thought in terms of politics, influence, and position.
So our search for the King led us straight into the court of Herod. We were astonished by the mammoth palace, about 1,000 feet long and 180 feet wide, built on roughly 4.13 acres of land.
We had followed the star faithfully. We had come so far. But we had not yet understood what kind of King we were seeking—or how much that King would disturb other thrones, including our own.
And that is where Part 2 of my story begins.
Ennathinks 
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