“[T]hey departed for their country by another way.”

This familiar tag at the end of the passage gives us the image of the magi and their entourage skirting around the main byways serving Jerusalem in order to avoid Herod’s minions and thereby preserve the obscurity of the Christ child and his Holy Family. Imagine how bewildered these men must have been to discover the almost complete lack of awareness, appreciation or enthusiasm from the people in the Jewish capital; the city of the Temple; the very subjects over whom this infant Messiah would gloriously rule.  No one cared, it seemed, except for King Herod, who could expect to be supplanted by this much anticipated successor, anointed by God.  They must have shaken their beards and wondered what sort of topsy-turvy world they had stumbled into.

Doesn't this lead us to look at this passage from an alternative perspective and to come to understand that by commenting that the magi departed for their country “by another way,” it can also be taken to mean that they as well as their direction were changed by this encounter with the Christ child?  These “wise men” were students of history and of prophetic writing.  They may have personally experienced the ravages of war and slavery between the peoples of the area and were most certainly aware of the unrelenting cycle of evil perpetrated on the poor and powerless.  It is easy to imagine that they were starved for peace and dreamed of a resolution to all conflict through the powerful intervention of God who would anoint a beneficent King.  That this King would then gather and rally his Jewish subjects to conquer the world and bring it all under his peaceful rule.  The Jewish scriptures gave them this hope and they searched for it, guided by the star.

What they found were a people with ears oddly unattuned to hear the joyful news that the Messiah was arriving as well as a ruthless King with all of the means to destroy this infant interloper within his first moments of life.  And yet strangely no one monitored the magi on their short journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Even though a host of angels loudly heralded the good news to the shepherds in the fields, a mere few miles from the Temple, all was numbly quiet in the streets of Jerusalem and the halls of Herod’s palace. 

What was discovered by the magi in that Bethlehem cave was an infant in full possession of timeless love and peace which emanated from him as a gift to touch their core.  This was not a fearsome warrior, but a tender lover.  He had no need for military protection because he was under supreme protection.  Guidance came to the Holy Family directly from God’s envoy.  No one and no thing would disturb this anointed one of God from fulfilling his mission as foretold by the prophecies.  And this finally was the epiphany experienced by the magi: God’s love prevails.