Magi

I didn't expect our arrival in Jerusalem to cause as much upheaval as it did. After all, we had journeyed with the expectation of finding the baby who was born to be king of the Jews. Herod and his people developed faces filled with anguish and panic.

Not that we hadn't suddenly become worried either. Thoughts flashed across my mind. Had the long journey all been in vain? Is it possible that we could have misread the stars?

We didn't get any answers to where the King had been born during that first audience with Herod. As we were ushered out of the throne room, we overheard instructions being made to assemble the chief priests and teachers of the law. I began to feel optimistic again. If we had made mistakes on the way, surely the religious leaders would have ideas as to where their promised king had been born. Maybe they could even guide us as to where he would be.

I can't explain how uneasy I felt on hearing that we had been summoned to a private meeting with Herod. It didn't take long to have heard rumours of Herod's cruelty around the court. I didn't particularly relish the prospect of being isolated in the presence of a man who had shown no qualms about ordering the execution of his wife, mother-in-law and his own eldest son. Although we were respectable people, I had no doubt that if he could murder members of his own family, he'd have no problem permanently removing us foreigners from his court and life itself.

However, it was Herod the politician we encountered behind closed doors. After asking for more explanation of how we had followed the star, he explained that the chief priests had outlined to him that Bethlehem was the place where the king would have been born. In the course of this discussion, we were involuntarily recruited by Herod to go to Bethlehem to confirm the birth of the king and report back to him. So he could come and worship him, he said. I felt uneasy.

Preparing to head for Bethlehem, you can't imagine how relieved and excited we were when the star that had set us off on this long journey in the first place appeared to be going ahead of us. We weren't just doing an errand for Herod, there was a sense that something altogether more important would be there at our journey's end.

Soon we arrived in Bethlehem. The star stopped over a house. Inside we found a couple and a child.

In hindsight, there should be something embarrassing about a group of grown men not just giving gifts, but falling to their knees and worshipping a child. But when we saw him, it didn't feel like there was an option not to fall down before the infant. Shame was chased away and our hitherto expensive gifts seemed insignificant.

He was just worthy of being worshipped.

That night, the peaceful sleep you would assume would follow after a long journey is completed failed to materialise. The most vivid dreams about the hideous consequences of letting Herod know where to find the king. One of us having this dream would be enough to put down to chance. But the morning brought the revelation that we had all had been shaken by the same vivid dream.

I looked over my shoulder a number of times as we started off on our alternative route home. Herod would no doubt find our decision not to return to his court with information tantamount to treason and would surely show us no mercy. More importantly, I didn't want our presence in the area to give away the location of the baby king, as the dream had convinced me that Herod had nothing but elimination planned for the child. The six miles between Bethlehem and Jerusalem was not nearly enough distance to be considered safe as far as I was concerned.

As soon as we had reached a safe distance away, thoughts turned from the threat posed by Herod to contemplation on the wondrous sight that we had found in Bethlehem.

How would his kingdom be brought about? Would he remember us?

Despite the great distance that lay between our location and home, and the distance in years that would have to go by before the baby king had grown up and could establish his kingdom, I had an unshakable feeling in my heart.

My eyes had seen the king.