NOTES for Mat 2:1-12
How many creative people - writers, poets, artists - this short story has inspired. Why? Outwardly it is a completely ordinary event, the birth of a Child, but in His honor an unusual star lights up in the sky, and that star leads three magi to Bethlehem. And now there are three elders bowing before the Child, three pagans before the King of the Jews, three learned sages before the One on whom the Lord's Spirit of wisdom and understanding secretly rests (Isa. 11:2).
All human wisdom, all human knowledge, can do only this: lead us to God for true knowledge and suggest what gifts we may bring with us.