I’m feeling a little cheated this Christmas season. I didn’t get to dress up like a Bible character and put myself into the Bible story for our Kindergarteners. Our curriculum had us studying the bad prophets and kings. I don’t want to dress up like one of those bad Jahoia-whatevers. Then, suddenly in a nod to Christmas, the lessons shifted to Mary. I guess I could have dressed up like an angel, but Lorraine really wanted to tell the story of Mary. So, it was her turn this year; she didn’t dress up.

There’s something about an old, bearded man in jeans and a sport jacket morphing into a shepherd or an apostle or maybe even a tax collector that is just irresistible to me. And our kids are young enough that when I announce myself as whoever, there is a little part of them that believes it.

Now my head goes to the magi from the east—upper echelon, exotic, other-worldly. They were learned. Sometimes called wise men or kings, they brought gifts and avoided meeting Herod a second time. The Bible doesn’t give details, but traditions have added names and more. I could be one of them, I think; instead my head goes to special guests. I’m the casting agent this time.

Caspar, representing Europe, brought gold; I cast my friend from Ukraine. He has school-aged kids and does ministry in the midst of war, where air raid sirens are a part of daily life. They’ve started rationing electricity in his neighborhood at unpredictable times. He helps with small groups. He teaches workshops to help young people use their minds and imaginations. He has contests for people to write down a story of faith in what seems like an unending war. What a gift of gold he brings.

Melchior, representing Asia, brought frankincense; I cast my friend from Singapore. He too is a pastor and a publisher. He has a strong ministry to men and helps to call them to great holiness. He also has no pretentions. He is kind and humble and acts sometimes like Obiwankenobi or Yoda. He is funny and heart-felt serious at the same time. His quiet prayer sustains me through years.

Balthazar, representing Africa, brought myrrh; I cast my friend from Nigeria. He’s works for a publisher/printer. The town and church he grew up in were burned to the ground—Boko Haram or the Fulani, I can’t remember which, but they’re both there. He perseveres, and his gentle love and prayers for others always refresh. The publishing goes on as does the church in Nigeria.

So, for next year, it’s not going to be me. I’m inviting my real friends to make their imaginary journeys on camels—clop, clop, clopping their way across oceans and borders toward the Bethlehem of Kindergarten at College Church.

The shepherds saw and heard the angels announce the coming of Jesus, but the magi saw from afar. They saw something in the stars that was significant enough for them to put their lives on hold and take a journey to a foreign land to worship a king they clearly did not know.

Each of us takes that journey only to discover that our homelands are the faraway-from-God places where we bring books of faith to children or bookstores or seminaries or war zones—the Word that is alive is with us.

The faraway wisemen capture imaginations through the ages and we can’t help ourselves. We embellish and create stories. It’s fun. But we also see Jesus in new and different ways when we see him through the eyes of far-off people. Jesus transcends our homes, nations, cultures. He is in but beyond our human foibles, even the ones we make as Christians.

I like to think that the Christians I most admire are the ones not like me, but people far away—in miles or in history—from my own limited experience: my friends from Asia and Europe and Africa. But you know, we are not really so different from one another. We do not define God by our experience. God makes us; he defines us by his everything; he uses us in our own contexts for light-shining where darkness imagines itself ruling for what feels like forever.

Joseph’s shame, the cunning smirk or cynic’s scoff

From the womb to the feeding trough

Or all we know as humanly smart

He dives headlong into the human heart

From the cup of wrath he does not shrink

The filthiest dregs he dares all to drink.

The servant Wise-Man-Maker journeys on

From darkest night to pearlescent dawn

Hammered to the skull-place of no recall,

The royal robes of heaven, he surrenders all.

He gives up life and gives more than anyone can

Dawn comes to the sleeping land of woman and of man.

Our tattered gifts we journal, we kneel, we bring

From Joseph’s tomb he lifts his baton that we might sing.