The Three Wise Men from the East came to pay homage to the newborn Child Jesus. However, the first to arrive and adore Him were the shepherds. In the shepherds, we see representatives of the chosen people — on one hand, those among whom God chose His Son to be born, and on the other hand, they show us that to recognize the Savior in this Child, great scholarship, like that of the scribes or Pharisees, is not enough. Humility is also needed.
The scribes study the Scriptures and think they know where and how the Savior should come. Yet their excessive confidence and pride in their knowledge prevent them from seeing God in the small Child.
The Wise Men from the East, whose arrival in Bethlehem we celebrate today, represent the pagan nations — those who worship the forces of nature. It was precisely their observation of nature that led them to Bethlehem. But even for the Wise Men, humility was necessary — for they found something different from what they were seeking. They were looking for the Son of a king, born in a palace, and instead they found the Son of a poor family, born in a stable. They could have been disappointed, but they were humble enough not to be deceived by appearances. In this humble Child, they recognized not only a new king, but the Savior of the world — something far greater than what they had been seeking.
The story of the Wise Men is somewhat like that of Christopher Columbus, who set out to find a new route to India and instead discovered a new continent. He did not find what he was seeking, but he found something much greater and more important.
After meeting Jesus, the Wise Men returned “by another way.” They could not go back the same way, because the encounter with Jesus was so great and unexpected that it changed their lives.
The story of the shepherds and the Wise Men teaches us that there are different ways of seeking God’s presence in our lives. But no matter which path we choose, humility is essential — humility that allows us to accept God as He reveals Himself, not as we would wish Him to be. It is the willingness to accept what God wants to give us, instead of being upset that we do not receive what we are looking for. For it may turn out that what God has prepared for us surpasses our wildest dreams.