The special season of giving and receiving gifts has come to a close. Santa can park up his sleigh for the next eleven months, and take some well-deserved rest for himself and his reindeer, elves and whoever else helped him with his incredibly intense hard work over the last month. His only helpers that cannot go on leave for the next eleven months are… us; most of us have to come back to our everyday hustle and bustle, with only occasional opportunities to take short breaks.
In today’s gospel we see some wise men coming from the east, bearing expensive gifts, looking for a newly-born Jewish king to pay him homage and to give him royal presents. The Bible gives only a few details about the men: we don’t know their number, nationalities, status or the countries they came from. We can speculate and accept the traditional number of three, but that’s all. What we do know for certain is that they were foreigners, that they came from afar, and that after a rather short stay in the Holy Land they returned home, leaving behind their precious gifts and the furious and outwitted king Herod.
Somehow the wise men seemed to be model foreign visitors: they came full of awe, left a lot of money and didn’t hang around for too long. But even their exemplary short visit angered at least one local politician – King Herod – who didn’t manage to use them in his own cunning plan to fight his perceived opposition. On the other hand, the wise men seemingly weren’t so wise; in their pursuit of the newly-born king they headed straight for the royal palace, and it’s quite likely they were initially surprised to learn that the One they were seeking had been born in a small provincial town in a non-royal family. Their wisdom came to light in their ability to overcome their initial assumptions, and in their recognition of baby Jesus as the object of their homage.
King Herod and the wise men are presented by St Luke as contrasting figures. For the former, power is everything, and his main driving force is keeping it. He relies on his own devices; everything and everyone can be used and abused in order for him to remain in power unopposed and in total control. His cunning plan turns out to be unsuccessful because of his dishonesty and indecency. In contrast to him, the wise men are presented as decent and honest, even artless, lacking in diplomatic skills and therefore landing themselves in trouble. But their honest approach is rewarded as they – led by God – reach their destination and avoid the king’s wrath on their return.
This new year opens up a new chapter in our lives. Despite our past experience and what we have been through, we look forward to the coming days, weeks and months; some of us have even planned or resolved to make some changes to our lifestyle. New hope will propel us onwards and upwards until our first failure or defeat. As more disappointments follow, we may be tempted to give up our plans and resolutions, and to surrender to mediocrity and a rather aimless existence. That would be wrong. If we have learnt anything in life, if we have developed in ourselves over the years, that happened because of our failures and defeats. We have learnt from these, they have pushed us to find other ways forward, they have made us revise our plans and make them realistic. Being wise men and women is not about achieving an unbroken chain of successes; it’s all about learning from adversity. Failure is not a defeat; it’s a lesson in wisdom.