Songs Through Advent: We Three Kings

"Glorious now behold him arise;

King and God and sacrifice:

Alleluia, Alleluia,

sounds through the earth and skies."

We'll never know what drove these men to seek out the baby born in Bethlehem. We know they followed a star in search of a king, and we know they came to worship him. But we'll never know what possessed them to take the journey in the first place.

They must have had experience with royalty before. They knew the gifts to bring. They knew protocols. They knew how to gain audience with influential people.

What they found must have confounded them; what they learned along the way had to have realigned their perceptions. If this really was a king, then he wasn't playing by the usual set of rules.

In the game of chess, Kings are not supposed to be vulnerable. Kings can't even move around the board until the other pieces move. They are stuck until the board opens up, only moving one space at a time, and really only shine when other pieces are sacrificed. If you sacrifice your king, the game is done.

Even in a game, the object is not to make peace.

When the Wise Men make their journey, they find a King with no guards, no court, no army. They find a King who is willing to be the sacrifice for his people. They find out that the King had already come from Heaven to meet them.

This time, the King made the first move.