Greetings, my fellow port swillers, and happy Epiphany!
Yes, today marks the O-ficcial end of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and – practically speaking – all those lords, ladies, maids, partridges, rings, et al are invited to get off my lawn.
Seriously, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is, in my humble opinion, one of the most tedious and un-rescuable of all the Christmas standard carols, despite the fact that some people think it’ s some kind of Catholic code.
Anyhoo, the point of the day is to mark the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem, there to worship and adore the Baby Jesus, thereby heralding His ministry amongst the Gentiles.
I try to wrap my brain around this encounter. According to Matthew:
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.
And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
I love that “another way” language. Clearly, the Magi got wind of what Herod (not a man to be crossed0 intended and wanted no part of it. But what was the timing? What was the protocol? I’m fine with the idea that the Magi were not”Three Kings” but were something more like astrologers or “wise men without portfolio”. But what were the temporal obligations of their visit? What were the security protocols? How did it end?
Inquiring (and yet, perhaps, useless) minds want to know.
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
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January 7, 2016 at 1:21 pm
nightfly
As I recall, Herod was put wise to the whole affair by the Magi themselves, who checked in with him upon arriving. He tried to have them report to him on the way home, trying to exploit them as a sort of unknowing spy service – for whatever reason he was unwilling to commit his own resources to seeking out Jesus until the Magi ditched him and he lost his temper.
Like you I wonder what customs were in play that made them pay their respects to Herod in the first place… whether it was Judean custom, their own, or whether the Romans made them do it as a condition for letting them pass through their provinces. (And if you didn’t want to cross Herod, you surely didn’t want to annoy the Empire.) They may have checked in with any number of governors or local kings on their journey.