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We are Babylonians. We belong to a caste of men who occupy positions of court in Babylon. We are the most learned men of our country. We have dedicated our lives to the study of the sciences, especially astronomy. We also have some experience with the black arts, divination, magic, sorcery, that sort of thing. Our knowledge contains elements of science, and what you would classify as superstition. Some call us astrologers because we study the constellations and try to understand how the heavens govern the affairs of earth.

We are powerful and respected. We are sometimes sent from Babylon as ambassadors, or loaned as advisors to kings and governors. So it was not that unusual that we should travel to a distant land to visit a king. When we came to Judea, we visited two kings. One, in a palace with a marble floor; the other, in a poor house with a dirt floor. To one we paid our proper respects; to the other we gave our complete adoration.

There have been others like us in other kingdoms for centuries. The Hebrews have encountered our kind before. The Jewish patriarch Joseph met wise men in Egypt. Moses contested with Pharaoh's wise men at the time of the Exodus. One of the great heroines of Israel, Esther, encountered men of our class in the Persian empire. Even the great Jewish prophets have spoken with us, men like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. We are well-known in this part of the world.

So it should not surprise you to see wise men raising their voices among the twelve voices of Christmas. What might surprise you is that we join our voices in adoration to the Jews' Messiah. We adore the Anointed One of Israel because He is the Savior of us all. We are not kings as some would describe us. We came to find the One who had been born King of the Jews. We came to worship Him. We are the Voices of Adoration.

You may wonder how we knew to expect a child who would be born King of the Jews. Could we read such things in the stars? We first learned that a Messiah of the Jews was coming hundreds of years ago, during the days of Israel's captivity in Babylon. The wise men of Judah--Daniel, Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azariah--told us the Messiah would be sent by God to bring peace and freedom, joy and comfort, salvation to all mankind. Their knowledge and learning was recorded in our books. We kept their scrolls. Their words were forgotten or ignored by many in our order, but some few of us retained a special interest in this prophecy. We watched for signs of this king. That is how we knew to come to Palestine. We knew the teaching of your prophets.

But you may ask how did we know when to come? I do not have time now to give you a detailed explanation of our system of star observation and study. Suffice it to say, that as we observed the heavens, we saw the star signifying the promised King of the Jews rising in the East. We took this as an indication from the God of Heaven that He was now fulfilling His promise of salvation.

So we set out on our journey to the land of the Jews. The star disappeared, and we did not see it again until we arrived in Jerusalem. Once in the capital city, we began to inquire where the One born King of the Jews might be. We were puzzled because the Jews did not seem to know what we were talking about. We had come hundreds of miles to see the One born King. They didn't seem to know there was anyone born King. We wondered if perhaps we had come for nothing. You know, sometimes even wise men can be wrong.

The Jewish ruler, a man named Herod, called us to his palace at night. Perhaps his daytime schedule was too busy. Perhaps he had other reasons. The king seemed very interested in this Christ child. He told us that his experts said the child would be born in Bethlehem. He asked when the star had appeared. He sent us to find the child and told us that when we found Him, we should come back and tell him where to find the child so that he, too, could worship the Christ. I had my doubts about this Herod. Even in our brief visit, I could tell he was not loved by his people. He was served from fear. I recognized all the marks of a petty tyrant. They are the same in any land. His smooth speech served only to make us wary.

We set out for Bethlehem. We were gladdened to see the Messiah's rising star again. The star hung low in the heavens and seemed to lead us right to the Bethlehem house where Mary, Joseph and the young boy were living. We knocked, and a peasant opened the door. "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?" He studied us for a moment. There we stood, strangers dressed in beautiful Babylonian gowns, asking to see the King of the Jews. I could see his wife in the room behind him, trying to see who was at the door. The man made up his mind. He stepped back and held open the door for us to enter. We stooped through the doorway and entered their cramped quarters. Our host went through the door at the back and spoke briefly with a man in another part of the house. I got the impression they were relatives.

The young woman sat with the boy in her lap. He might have been a year, a year and a half. Not more than two. We approached Him solemnly and bowed with our faces to the dirt floor. In all my years of bowing to kings and governors, I never knew what a bow was meant for. It was meant for Him, the King of the Jews, the One we read of in Daniel's scroll. This child was appointed to finish transgression, to make an end of sin, and to anoint the holy place of God. This child--sitting before us in His mother's lap. I trembled. We worshipped. We lifted our voices in adoration, chanting in the Babylonian tongue, surely unlike any that little village had ever heard.

We stayed and talked with them far into the night. We listened to them tell about angels, the birth of the child at the inn, Joseph's dream. We told them that Herod had expressed an interest in the child. I could tell they were not pleased by that news. We left them and stayed at the inn.

That night the God of Heaven gave us dreams. We are experts in dreams, and when we discussed our dreams in the morning, it was clear to us that we should not go back to Herod. We circled around Jerusalem and left Judea by another way.

We found one king and hid ourselves from another. One King to be adored, one King to whom the ancient writings pointed, of whom the stars of heaven testified, for whom we wise men of the East raised our voices in adoration.