The three wise men are not the most
central characters in the Christmas story, they appear only in the
gospel according to St Matthew, but they're the only characters who
came from a great distance, and so
they are the only characters in the Christmasstory whom we think that
perhaps, probably were gentiles,
and therefore conceivably the only ones who might have been Lutheran.
Some bible scholars believe
that they were. At least one of them was Lutheran because the 3 of them
came bearing gifts: they
brought gold, frankincense and myhrr. And myhrr in case you weren't
aware of this was a casserole, a
hot-dish...made from macaroni and hamburger, some tomato in it. And it
comes from the pronunciation
in the middle East and also in the MidWest of hamburger as
'hammer'...thus its name. So we think of 1
of the wise men probably was Lutheran, and may have intended to stop at
a department store and pick
up something expensive as gold and frankincense, but his wife who was a
wise woman said 'No take
this, they'll probably be hungry, take some myhrr...just bring back the
dish!' So they might have been
our guys, at least one of them.
They came from a great distance away following a star, which for
wise man was not very smart when
you think of it, because a star is up in the sky and so the sense of
direction you get from a star is gonna
be a little bit general, and which stable the star is right over kinda
depends on where you're standing at
the time. So these guys were navigating on faith. They took a long trip
based on less hard information
than a person might like to have. But they came through and they found
Christmas on faith. They
actually found it. And so may we. Even though it may be more of an
adventure for us today than it was
for them back then, because there's so much artificial light from
Christmas and so much reflected light,
that there's kind of a general glow and it may be hard to pick out
stars in the sky, just as it is in the city,
even a very bright one. But it can be found and it can be followed and
we can find it.
There is hope for us all.
