Sunday, January 4, 2026, The Epiphany of Our Lord (Observed)
“A Heart of Wisdom”
Psalm 72:1-11; Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
Divine Service III with Holy Communion
Hymns: “Brightest and Best of the Stars of the Morning” #400; “Arise and Shine in Splendor” #396; “Hail, O Source of Every Blessing” #409
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today is Epiphany Sunday in God’s Church, the day we mark the coming of the Magi, the Wise Men, to see the child Jesus. An epiphany is a revealing, a sudden revelation. It’s an “aha!” moment, when truth is revealed or you suddenly come to understand something.
Where did the Wise Men get their wisdom? What does it even mean to be wise? I got to thinking about wisdom this week, and what it could be. It occurs to me that there are two kinds of wisdom we can talk about. There’s what we can call human wisdom, or wordly wisdom. That’s a good thing to have. If you’re going to be a doctor, it’s a good thing to have some knowledge of anatomy. If you’re going to be an engineer, and build dams, skyscrapers, bridges, and such, it would be a good idea to know a little math. And then there’s God’s wisdom, or spiritual wisdom, which is ever more necessary than the worldly, earthly kind. Spiritual wisdom comes from God. It comes from His Spirit, and it comes from knowing His Word. God’s wisdom transcends and takes precedence over human wisdom, every single time.
Human wisdom is based on logic and reason, and on what we human beings have learned and come to know. God’s wisdom comes from what God knows and has passed down to us. Human wisdom, to be wise, has to fit together and make some kind of orderly sense. God’s wisdom, being so far beyond us, so often makes no sense as far as human reason goes. Sometimes we have to accept what God says and take it one faith, whether it makes sense to us in the moment or not. “The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight,” St. Paul says.
Godly wisdom in the original Greek is phronimos, a word that means applying our knowledge of God (as informed by Scripture) to our present circumstances. The contrasting word is moros, or foolishness. The wise live in accordance with divine revelation, while those who are foolish neglect it, pursuing wisdom of their own.
The Wise men were… wise. They were wise in science, astronomy, and human wisdom; they were educated men. But they were wise enough to put their own wisdom aside, when it came to the things of God. King Herod was wise in his own way; he was not a stupid man. He was wise in the ways of getting power and hanging on to it, wise in politics and palace intrigue and what it takes exercise power and hang on to a throne. But for all his skill and cunning at running a kingdom, he was a fool, nevertheless.
Ah, the dear Wise Men; we know so little about them. We know they were called Magi, a class of people in the ancient world who were the scientists, astrologers, and intelligentsia of their day, the men of learning. We know they came from somewhere east of Israel, likely Babylon or Persia. We know they were Magi, not kings, but we don’t know if there were three or ten or thirty of them. We know they knew somehow about the God of Israel, and about His promise that a Savior would be born King of the Jews. We know they knew the star they saw in the east was the sign that would tell them He’d been born. It looks like their human knowledge and what they knew of Scripture was somewhat limited or incomplete, though, because they came to Jerusalem to look for the newborn King, not knowing about Bethlehem or Micah’s prophecy. They were most likely looking for King to be found in a kingly setting or a royal palace, not in the humble circumstances they’d find Him in. We do know, though, that they were wise enough to know a sign from God when they saw it, and humble enough to put worldly wisdom aside to come and find their Savior. So, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the One who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star in the east, and have come to worship him.’ "
And what are we to make of King Herod? “When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.” Old Herod’s ears perked up, as they always did, when he heard that word “king.” That was part of the human wisdom he had when it came to keeping his throne secure. He was disturbed, he was troubled, he was greatly agitated; and when Herod was disturbed, everyone else had reason to be worried, too. Herod had been known to do drastic and terrible things where his hold on his kingdom was concerned.
King Herod did first what any king or ruler would do when there was something they needed to know. He called together the experts, the chief priests and law teachers, and asked them where the Scriptures said the Christ would be born. And they answered him from the prophet Micah: "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"
Now Herod could have done a couple different things at this point; there are two ways he could have gone. He could have believed the words of the prophet, and praised God, and got down on his knees himself in thanksgiving; that would have been truly wise. But we know that’s not what he did. He turned to own wisdom, his own will, the desire of his own sinful heart. He chose the world over the Christ who had come to save him. That was foolish indeed, for him or for anyone.
Herod “called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.” He was already forming in his wicked heart what he planned to do about the upstart little king who was after his throne. God’s way is always good, if you’ll turn your heart to follow it; but seeking after your own heart can lead to all kinds of awful things. (That’s why telling someone “follow your heart” is terrible advice, unless your heart has God in it. My sinful heart just might lead me wrong; I’m always better off praying first and trusting God).
So Herod found out from the Wise Men exactly when the star had appeared, so he’d know how much ground his awful order had to cover, and how many baby boys would have to die as “collateral damage” when he spread his dragnet to find the Holy Child. So he told the wise men a lie. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find Him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him." But we know that worship was the farthest thing from his mind.
And now, folks, we see the difference between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world. The Wise Men, having been told where they’d find the Child, set out for Bethlehem to search for Him. They might have thought they’d have to ask about Him when they got there, or even search for Him from house to house, which they would have happily done, uncertain a proposition as that was. But then God, in His marvelous, holy wisdom, did a most impossible thing for them. That star they’d seen in the east, all those months ago? Suddenly it reappeared! That makes no human sense, of course; that just isn’t what stars do.
Exactly what the Bethlehem star was, we don’t know. A star God chose to move, a heavenly light, a heavenly angel, we just don’t know. But whatever it was, it guided and led them to the place where the Child was. To the exact place, the exact house, the exact address, a holy light pointing them to the right place – all this before they ever invented GPS! That’s what listening to God will do for you!
“When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” That’s also what listening to God will do for you. “They rejoiced with great joy exceedingly” the literal translation says. They were overjoyed, uber-joyed, at the help God had sent them. They’d been vindicated. All the people who’d told them they were fools when they set out on their journey, all the doubts they had themselves along the way, all the fears they had that they’d never find the One they were looking for, that they were on a fool’s errand – all their doubts were erased by that beautiful shining star that had no sensible, logical right to be there.
“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.” Not what they expected, not at all. They came looking for a King, bringing gifts fit for a King. What they found was a quite ordinary mother, and an ordinary toddler of a child, with none of the trappings of earthly wealth or heavenly glory that should by all rights have been there. But the Wise Men put their earthly wisdom, their human perceptions, their preconceptions aside, and worshiped Him, nevertheless. They gave Him gold fit for a royal king, and rare frankincense fit to burn before a holy God.
And they gave Him that curious substance myrrh, which was used in the ancient world as a cleansing agent, as a pain killer, and especially in embalming. They offered Jesus myrrh mixed with wine as a painkiller before they crucified Him, but He refused to drink it. And myrrh would have been among the spices Joseph of Arimathea brought when they took Him down from the cross, and among the spices the women brought on Easter morning, intending to embalm Him. Those gifts, valuable as they were, certainly would have helped the holy family in their escape to Egypt, when Herod was seeking their Child to kill Him.
The Wise Men, wise men that they were, took Him as He was, and worshiped Him as God had sent Him to them. All human wisdom aside, it didn’t have to make sense. Isn’t faith a wonderful thing? Then God, in His mercy, warned the Wise Men in a dream not to go back to Herod, who would certainly have killed them or thrown them in prison, “and they returned to their country by another route.” So the Wise Men returned home, no doubt to tell the Good News about the Savior they’d found. And Herod, in his godless wisdom, and driven by rage and anger and the devil himself, proceeded with his plan to kill all the boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem who were under two years old, intending to kill the Son of God before anyone could crown Him a King. Herod didn’t succeed in his plan; he couldn’t. God’s wisdom, spiritual wisdom, wins out over the human kind, every single time.
Human wisdom says this world is all there is; that we should take from the world all the world will give us, and pile up our treasure and guard our horde, until we have to die and leave it all behind. (King Herod himself would be dead in another year or two).
God’s wisdom, and His wonderful Word, says “God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son.” That God would send His Son to die for sinners like us makes no sense at all – and yet He did! That Jesus the Christ would be raised from the dead, still carrying the odor of embalming spices, but very much alive, makes no human sense either. But we in the faith God has given us believe that it’s true. And it makes no sense, no sense at all, that Jesus our Lord would give us Himself, body and blood somehow hidden and contained in the bread and the wine, made to be present by the Word He gave us – but we put our human wisdom aside and bow our heads and believe that it’s true.
I’ll leave you with this prayer from St. Paul, from Ephesians chapter 1. Let this be our blessing for the New Year to come:
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe.” In Jesus’ name; Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.
Trinity Lutheran Church, Packwaukee, WI
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com