Devotional
In The Footsteps of Wise Men
Epiphany is the season on the Christian liturgical calendar that immediately precedes Lent. During epiphany, believers follow in the steps of the wise men to seek Jesus. Of the many titles of Jesus in scripture, one that is often overlooked is that Christ is “the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).
In other words, the “wise” men come from the East searching for “wisdom.” What this means is that before we enter the season of Lent, we should have first sought wisdom. And yet as we follow the wise men, we discover how confounding this wisdom is.
The wise men do what we might expect wise people to do: they go looking for one who has been born “king” in a palace. But to their surprise, this king is not to be found in the palace and this palace has no knowledge of the birth of this king.
As “wise” as these men were, they probably found it baffling to discover that the king they were looking for had been born in a manger. The story of the preparation for Lent, then, is a story in which we are given a preview into the wisdom of God.
As the apostle Paul notes, God’s wisdom often comes across as foolishness to the world; and yet, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:25). In the world’s wisdom, kings are born in palaces, and power belongs to the wealthy and those with strong armies. By leading the wise men and us to himself in the lowliest of places, God upends the wisdom of the world. Kings, we find out, are born in smelly places like mangers, and power does not reside with those with wealth and those with a strong military.
Such statements do indeed sound foolish. But herein lies the wisdom of God. And it is the kind of wisdom that should inform our practices when we ask ourselves, “How can the practices and habits we give up or take on reflect the wisdom of God?”
In our season of Lent, may you find an answer.
Prayer
Father of all wisdom, may this period of Lent be a time of contemplation when we examine ourselves to discern the wisdom that is shaping our lives. Grant us your wisdom.
By Rev. Dr. Robert Moses, an Associate Professor of Religion at HPU
