Christmas preparations are underway. Soon venerated Nativity scenes will be pulled out of storage. As a child, I loved setting up our Nativity, nestling the Woolworth figurines in a cardboard box my dad had painted to look like a barn. Of course, the Wise Men were part of the scene, even though the Bible tells us they didn’t visit Jesus until He was about one-and-a-half years old.
There were logistical reasons for that delay. But I digress.
What the Bible doesn’t tell us is the risks the Wise Men took to find Jesus.
A quick Google search can get you a “master class” on how to take risks. Along with the expected advice of having a plan and overcoming fear of failure, standouts in taking “good risks” include: “what matters is how dangerous the risk is” and “start with small risks.”
In other words, don’t put too much on the line.
So we don’t.
We crave short-term results akin to the resolution we can find in a two-hour movie, a three-hour football game, four weeks on a new job. But life is harder … longer … full of doubts, uncertainties, and the dark, in-between times when we can’t tell whether our risk is worth it.
It’s a good thing the Wise Men didn’t have Google when they studied an elusive star that they ultimately linked with prophesies of the eternal child-king, Yeshua. Jesus.
They put everything on the line to find Him.
Although we don’t know where the Wise Men hailed from, the greatest body of evidence points to Persia, which was part of Parthia, one of the two largest superpowers at the dawn of the first century. There the Wise Men held privileged, influential positions within Magi society, serving multiple religions while adhering to their country’s official religion. A religion that influenced everything from their government and health care to ecology and sanitation practices.
The Wise Men did something completely countercultural and counterintuitive in seeking Jesus. They bucked their culture and religion … risked their reputations, careers, and even their lives on a politically charged pursuit with seemingly no chance of success. Why did they do it? To answer those questions, I spent three years researching and writing New Star.
The Wise Men can teach us a lot about taking risks.
- Align your convictions with God’s Word and stick to it—even if it means bucking the system (Proverbs 3:5-6).
- Don’t be afraid to think big (Isaiah 64:3-4).
- Do your part to prepare (research, weigh your options, test what you’re told)—but lean into God’s wisdom and guidance more than your own (1 John 4:1, Philippians 2:13).
- Have a plan; expect it to change (Proverbs 19:21).
- Walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
- Be confident in God’s ability (Psalm 25:4-5, Joshua 1:9).
- Setbacks can be God’s way of setting the stage for a greater victory that honors Him in ways you can’t imagine (Jeremiah 29:11).
- When God guides you, your destination is sure. He will accomplish His purposes (Isaiah 46: 10).
Chapter 2 of Matthew’s Gospel gives us twelve verses—a pencil sketch—of those well-educated foreigners. I wrote New Star so people can experience the Wise Men as 3D, real people before and after they find Jesus.
The Wise Men studied the stars and Hebrew writings. But finding Jesus was more than an academic exercise. They sought to know Him. That’s extraordinary because no other religion espoused anything like Judaism’s tenets. God honored those foreigners by making them privy to history’s greatest eternal shift.
Daniel 2:21-22 says if we are wise in the things of God, God will give us more wisdom and greater understanding. May that be true for us as it was with the Wise Men!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.