Despite the fact that all those nativity scenes we perch on table tops in December include a trio of kingly figures, and despite the presence of three gift-bearing “wise men” at the end of every Christmas pageant, the “magi” described in Matthew’s gospel were not part of that same Christmas Day crowd of angels and shepherds and creatures gathered in a stable. Matthew’s “magi” had a different role, a different mission, than was proposed by Luke’s shepherds and angels.

Matthew’s first chapter focuses on who Jesus was, providing an ancestral lineage that demonstrated his Davidic qualifications. In this second chapter the gospel writer traces Jesus’ geographical qualifications, detailing the fulfillment of the scripturally foretold Bethlehem birth of the Messiah. Unlike Luke’s travelogue that…