I have had the pleasure of going on several wilderness retreats with my friend, John Bradford. John is a man of God who felt called to start a men’s retreat ministry called Wilderness Outreach. On these retreat “expeditions,” you spend a week out in wilderness areas working on trails and sleeping in tents. In the morning and afternoon you clear trails, and in the evening you return to camp to have discussions about growing in your spiritual life and to celebrate Mass on an altar that you build together at the beginning of the week. It is an awesome time.
One of the things I remember about Wilderness Outreach is that John Bradford was an extremely early riser. Every morning he would come around while everyone was still asleep and start shaking their tents and telling them to get up. For most of us, this was a somewhat unpleasant awakening, as we were sore from the tough physical labor and just wanted to spend a couple more minutes in our warm sleeping bags. So on one expedition, me and some of the other young guys decided that we were going to play a prank on John. We decided to set our alarms for the wee hours of the morning and go over and wake up John from a dead sleep in his tent. We figured it would be fun to see him grumpily get up before he wanted to, just like he made all of us do.
Unfortunately, our plan backfired. When we shook John’s tent at around 1:00 a.m. and told him it was time to get up, he simply popped out of his sleeping bag and very matter-of-factly said, “O.K.” I don’t know about the other guys, but I was floored by his calm response. John’s readiness to get up even in the middle of the night showed me that he wasn’t as attached to a good night’s sleep as I was. His attitude at being unexpectedly awakened revealed something to me about his character: that he was more detached from his creature comforts than me, at least in this area.
Today, we can see how the attitudes of Herod and the wise men reveal their respective characters. To understand the attitude of the wise men, I want to walk us through a brief lesson in Greek. There are times when the English translation of scripture that we read at Mass lets us down. Today is one of those times. Matthew’s Gospel was originally written in Greek and then later translated into English. In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the wise men tell Herod: “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” The word ‘homage’ used here is a translation of the Greek verb, proskuneó. This verb can mean ‘homage,’ but it can also refer to falling down before somebody in worship. In fact, the Revised Standard Catholic Edition of the Bible translates what the wise men said in just that sense: “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.”
So here are the wise men, asking Herod where they can find a newborn king in order to bow low before Him and worship Him. These wise men are very aptly named, because their words and actions reveal their character. In their wisdom, they realize that God is at work through a king who is to be born in Bethlehem. In the face of this awe-inspiring reality, they seek out the king in order to worship and pay respect to Him. When they find Jesus, they prostrate themselves before him, as we hear in the Gospel. What Greek word do you think Matthew used for prostrating, that is, bowing low in worship? Proskuneó! So the wise men proskuneó before Jesus and offer Him extremely valuable gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.
I did a bit of research and found that frankincense and myrrh were two resins that came from trees that were nearly impossible to grow outside of the Arabian Peninsula. Thus, at the time of Jesus, they would have been even more valuable than gold, which itself was very valuable. In fact, trade routes had been formed connecting Arabia to places as far away as India and China, just to facilitate the trade of Frankincense! Frankincense was commonly used to honor gods in that region.
So the wise men knew that this infant King, Jesus, was deserving of the very best. They approached Him and worshipped Him, placing before Him treasures fit for a King in Whom God was present. We can’t know exactly how much they understood about Jesus, but their attitude revealed them to be men of great character, filled with reverence before the power of God at work in humanity in a new way. In the first reading, Isaiah prophesied about a light coming from Jerusalem which would shine on the whole world: “Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance.” Jesus is that definitive light of the world! He came to lift all people out of darkness by His light. The wise men had the humility and openness of heart to realize this and welcome His light when He was just a baby.
Conversely, we see Herod act in just the opposite way when confronted with the news of a king born in Bethlehem who deserves worship. His attitude is one of deception and cunning. Herod wants to trick the wise men into leading him to Jesus so he can murder this new king, whom he only sees as a threat to his own personal power. We know that eventually Herod orders the massacre of countless young children in the area of Bethlehem to try and neutralize the perceived threat. Herod’s attitude reveals that in his heart he is a king of low character, filled not with reverence and wonder in the face of God’s power at work in humanity in a new way, but with resentment, anger and jealousy at the perceived threat.
The call for us this Sunday is to examine our own hearts. When faced with the great power of Jesus at work, how do we respond? Are we people whose attitudes and actions reveal the character of the wise men, or of Herod? Do we see Jesus as a threat to our ability to do what we want, to be the rulers of ourselves? Do we seek ways to remove Jesus from our lives? Or, like the wise men, do we recognize Jesus as one who deserves our unfailing respect and worship? Do we seek to put ourselves and the gifts we’ve been given at Jesus’ feet in humble worship? At Mass, do we give the best of ourselves with our attention and humble worship through song and prayer? Or are we distracted and counting the minutes till we can get on with our day? I pray that we open ourselves and all facets of our lives to God’s grace, so that more and more we can worship God and thus be transformed from pride and sin to humility and virtue.
+ Father, thank You for sending Jesus as the light shining in the darkness of our sin. Jesus, help us to have the same attitude as the wise men toward You. Help us to humbly lay ourselves and our gifts and talents down in worship before You every day, so that our lives may be filled with Your transforming power. Holy Spirit, fill us with grace to resist the temptation to see Jesus as a threat to us. Help us recognize the healing that He brings. We ask this through Christ, Our Lord. Amen. +