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This weekend, the Christian church celebrated the Epiphany, which is also commonly known as the Three King’s Day. The holiday serves as a reminder of the wise men (or kings, or magi, or whatever you want to call them) brought gifts to Baby Jesus in order to reveal to the world that he was our Lord and Savior.

Eureka! An Epiphany.

Ok, so how come the wise men get a pat on the back with this extra special day? I mean, you also had the shepards, and or course Mary and Joseph…and a variety of other people. They all helped to spread the word about Jesus too! Kind seems a little unfair?

Well actually, by acknowledging Baby Jesus, the wise men did more than simply follow a trend. Why? The wise men weren’t Jewish. Traditionally, the wise men are from the east, but where exactly, no one is sure. Common theories include India, Persia, and Babylon. In any case, it’s pretty certain that these guys were Zoroastrians.

Zoroastianism is a Middle Eastern religion that is still around today, although it is dying out, much like the Amish community, because the faith frowns on both conversion and marriage outside of the religion. These people are famous for knowing astrology very well hence, the only star part of the birth story. The star story itself is the cause of controversy, and I’ll talk about that on later this week, but let’s get back to the main story here. Most scholars agree that if the wise men existed, they were probably Zoroastrians from the East.

So that means that God stirred up in these holy men, men who were not even Jewish, a love and respect for Jesus. Or else they were just curious and spooked. Whatever.

In any case, it was an epiphany–this baby is so great that even gentiles bow down before him to worship.

And so, we celebrate this epiphany today. Eureka.

I hope that as you go out into this world, you can have your own epiphanies about the Divine (Christian or otherwise). Like the wise men, we may have to journey far to find God, but the trek is worth the reward.

Christian, church, Epiphany, Three King’s Day, wise men, magi, Jesus, Zoroastianism, religion, God