On the Twelfth Day of Christmas..many churches celebrate the Wise Men's visit bringing gifts to the Christ Child. In many countries, this is the day that gifts are given and received; but the underlying miracle is that God gave mankind the gift of His Son. The gifts that are mentioned in Matthew 2 are gold, frankincense and myrrh. Traditionally, the three gifts each have a spiritual and symbolic meaning: gold for a king, frankincense for worship of God, and myrrh, an oil used for medicine and also embalming, as a reminder of mortality. They have become associated with having been three astrologers or astronomers from Persia, although there are several traditions as to their identity. They have been identified as Balthasar, the youngest with frankincense and represents Africa; Caspar (or Gaspar), middle-aged, with gold and representing Asia; and Melchior, oldest, with myrrh and representing Europe. One tradition is that they stayed in the region, and were buried somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean area. St Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine in the 300's, is said to have found their bodies when she was searching for relics of the time of Jesus, and brought them to Constantinople. They were then moved to Milan in 344, and then to Cologne, Germany by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I in 1164, where they are housed in the Shrine of the Three Kings.
The one hint we have in the Gospel of Matthew is that they were "from the east" and had seen a star that they believed was associated with the birth of a king in Judea. The Parthian empire of that period included Persia, and the primary religion of the area was Zoroastrian, and which was known to have beliefs in a star that predicted such a birth. There have been several suggestions of what it could have been; one possibility is a comet, one is an unusually close conjunction of several planets, one is a possible supernova.
There are other legends of their backgrounds and eventual fates; there is tradition claiming that they were from Arabia, Persia and India, and that there is a legend of one of them having traveled on the ancient silk road in Pakistan on his way to Bethlehem. Marco Polo tells of having been shown three tombs south of Tehran in the 1270's, and there is a legend that one of them was an ancestor of the known Christian mother of Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor.
What I find significant is that at the very beginning of Jesus' earthly life we find a connection with prominent characters totally outside of the Jewish tradition and community. He was sent at a time when there was extensive trade and communication with amazingly extensive political connections, and we see later that Jesus was open throughout his life and ministry to people of other nationalities. When the Gospel was preached, it spread and became an international community. His last words were a command to go to all nations, which is still our challenge!
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