I have been reviewing some modern worship songs, but I’ve taken a break to explore some Advent and Christmas hymns. 😀. Just when you think Christmas is over, you remind yourself that December 25th is the first of the 12 days of Christmas. So, I’ll wait until January 7th to go back to normal hymns.
Today, I’ve chosen We Three Kings .
This isn’t the sort of hymn that you’d find in evangelical hymn books. We don’t like mingling Scriptural truth with legends. It’s more of a Christmas carol that you’d hear choirs sing. It isn’t a particularly ancient hymn. It’s thought to have been written for a pageant in New York City, possibly at the Central Theological Seminary back in 1857. I do remember it well from childhood, maybe Mario Lanza’s version particularly. You’d often hear it on Christmas records. Most of the lyrics are just speculation on what these men might have spoken.
1 We three kings of Orient are;
bearing gifts we traverse afar,
field and fountain, moor and mountain,
following yonder star.
Refrain:
O star of wonder, star of light,
star with royal beauty bright,
westward leading, still proceeding,
guide us to thy perfect light.
2 Born a King on Bethlehem's plain,
gold I bring to crown him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
over us all to reign. [Refrain]
3 Frankincense to offer have I;
incense owns a Deity nigh;
prayer and praising, voices raising,
worshiping God on high. [Refrain]
4 Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume
breathes a life of gathering gloom;
sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
sealed in the stone-cold tomb. [Refrain]
5 Glorious now behold him arise;
King and God and sacrifice:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
sounds through the earth and skies. [Refrain]
The story of the three kings is quite charming, but there isn’t any scriptural evidence to suggest that the wise men were kings, and it doesn’t say how many there were. At that time, as is this case through much of history, Jewish people lived all over the known world.
And spiritually minded gentiles might have been interested in their hopes of a coming Messiah. Just as God made a point of announcing the birth to poor shepherds, He appears to have singled out these men to emphasize that Jesus was coming into the world to offer salvation to the whole world. Christianity was never meant to be a tribal religion. It’s for everyone.
What about the star? People speculate about comets etc, but my view is that it was simply a light that God provided to guide them to Bethlehem, and the best way of describing it was to term it a star. We use the term star for all kinds of things that aren’t stars in the astronomical sense. Such miracles are very rare in the Bible. For example, when the Apostle Paul was travelling around the empire to spread to gospel, you don’t always get the impression that God told him exactly where to go. So what do we really know about the wise men?
- They visited after the birth of Jesus. Some think that it might have been months later.
- They brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which is why tradition assumes there were three of them.
- Their visit is associated with the first attempt to kill Jesus. The wicked King Herod, murdered innocent children under two in an attempt to ensure that anyone who could be the Messiah would be eradicated. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus temporarily moved to Egypt.
- The wise men came to worship Jesus.
Matthew 2: 1-2
2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
In both the Old Testament and New Testament, it’s clearly stated that worship and anything like worship should never be directed to anyone apart from God. We don’t know how much these wise men knew about Jesus. But when they did worship him, it would have been deemed an appropriate thing to do, given that this was more than just a man or a king.
Here are some other examples of worship directed to Jesus:
Matthew 14:23 (After Jesus calmed the storm)
Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
John 9:37-38 (After a blind man was cured)
37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
Matthew 28:9 (After the resurrection of Jesus)
9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.
Matthew 28:16-17 (After the resurrection of Jesus)
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
Revelation 5:13-14 (A scene in heaven)
13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”
14 The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
And the following verses demonstrate that we shouldn’t direct worship (or anything like worship) to anyone other than God:
Acts 10:25
25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
Rev 22:8
8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!”
Here are some interesting versions of We Three Kings:
Another closely associated hymn is “I Saw Three Ships”. In medieval English poetry, camels were sometimes called ships of the desert, so the “ships” may actually symbolize the Magi’s camels. It’s a nice “Christmassy” song, but the lyrics are nonsense 😀.
Hibernia Gospel 