The three wisemen from the East make their way to Jesus and his family. They followed the light from a star which led them through the darkness to the tiny but powerful light of Jesus. Jesus was sent to be the light in a dark world. The darkness, of which Isaiah speaks in the first reading, is a bad darkness, found all over the world today in so many countries, not a lot different from the darkness the Magi experienced also.
All throughout this story are elements of light and dark and it holds a powerful challenge. What is our reaction to new life? Especially a life that threatens us, that will take away some of our own popularity and angulation. Can we like the wisemen, lay our gifts at the feet of young people and move towards anonymity and eventual death with grace? Or, like Herod, will we feel that the new life is a threat and try somehow to get rid of it or kill it or diminish it, lest its star outshines our own. You see to bless another person is to give away some of ones own life so that the other might be better prepared for life’s journey. The wisemen did that for Jesus.
