Following Jesus can feel like riding a roller coaster. There are ups and downs, trills and panic, excitement, and eventual relief but the image lacks one thing. We know where a roller coaster will let us off. We don’t know that about Jesus. We see in today’s Gospel that we may know where we will start but not where he will bring us.
The Magi didn’t even know that. Magi were originally Persian priests who advised the king especially by interpreting his dreams and consulting the stars. As we see Herod and his brain trust of priests and scribes took their reason for traveling to Jerusalem at face value. It was a common belief that the birth of a great person would be prefigured in the stars. Their news would have been profoundly upsetting to Herod who thought himself “King of the Jews.” He was so paranoid that he killed so many heirs that it was said to be safer to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son. Herod feared that this King would be the long-longed-for Messiah who would displace him. His advisors told him that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem several miles from Jerusalem and sent the Magi on their way.
