At David’s Promise, I pastor adults with diverse abilities. My job there invites me to simplify Bible stories which sometimes helps me to see them in a new and simple light that I sometimes miss when the theologian in me is analyzing every last part of a story. Here’s how I shared the Christmas story of the wise men with them this week.
“We Three Kings” is the one Christmas song that most of us are familiar with when it comes to the story of the wise men in the Bible. But they actually weren’t kings—rather, they worked for kings. Kings always wanted to know what the heavens might say to them, so they always had wisemen whose job was to figure out that information.
One day, some wise men were looking up at the heavens and noticed that the stars of heaven had a certain positioning. As they tried to figure out why the positioning was important, they realized that it meant that the King of the Jews had been born. Maybe there was an old prophecy or something that informed them of this.
Now, if you were looking for a new baby king, where would you go? To the king, right? That’s exactly what the wise men did. But when they arrived, they discovered that no such king had been born. As they looked back to the heavens for answers, the stars moved again to guide them. They followed the movement and soon found the baby king they were looking for.
However, this king was nothing like what they expected. He wasn’t in a palace, but something like a barn or a cave. He wasn’t sleeping in a royal crib, but a feeding trough. He wasn’t surrounded by servants, but animals. The heavens themselves had told the wisemen where to go, and they pointed them to follow a very different kind of king.
Jamin Bradley 
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