The Unlikeliest Worshipers
Scripture: “Going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him.” — Matthew 2.11
MAIN POINT: God draws the most unlikely people to Himself for worship.
We have domesticated the Magi. They stand politely in our nativity sets beside the shepherds, looking dignified and respectable. We call them “wise men” and imagine them as noble kings. But Matthew’s account tells a different story.
The Greek word is magoi—sorcerers, astrologers, practitioners of the dark arts. In Acts 13, Paul called a magos named Elymas “a son of the devil” and struck him with blindness. These were not the kind of people you would expect to find worshiping the Messiah. They were pagans who studied the stars rather than the Scriptures. They were, by any reasonable measure, far from God.
And yet there they stand. In the house. Before Jesus. Falling down. Worshiping.
This is the scandal of grace. God does not limit His invitation to the respectable and religious. He draws the outsiders, the strangers, the ones we might least expect. As Paul writes in Ephesians 3, the mystery of Christ is “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3.6).
If God could bring pagan sorcerers from the east to worship at the feet of Jesus, there is no one He cannot reach.
Reflection: God specializes in reaching unlikely people. Who in your life seems far from God? How might you pray differently for them in light of Epiphany?
PRAYER: Father, thank You for drawing unlikely people to Yourself—including me. Open my eyes to see others as You see them: not as hopeless cases, but as potential worshipers. Give me faith to believe You can reach anyone. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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