January 6th is observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.

It’s the day on which we remember the visit of “Wise Men (Magi) from the east” who followed a star until they found the infant Jesus. In the Bible there is no number of wise men mentioned – we assume there were three because they brought three gifts; gold, a sign of a king; frankincense, a sign of God; and myrrh, a sign of death and burial. We traditionally name them Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, but again we have absolutely no real ideas of their names, nor exactly where they came from – just somewhere to the east of Bethlehem.

So is there any truth in the story at all? Well, scientists and astrologers and astronomers are 100% certain that there was an exceedingly bright star, or coincidence of stars and planets, in the sky in about the year 3 AD. As nobody knows exactly the date of Jesus’ birth (April is a more likely month than December), and the Christian festival was probably sited to “gather up” pagan festivals already marked, it is possible that this is where the “star” part of the story came from.

But what is without doubt and far more important than these details is that God’s love made real in the person of Jesus was for every single person on earth, not only the Jews.