Grace Frounfelker wrote “It Happened to Ordinary People” as seven monologs that retrace the events surrounding Jesus’ birth through the eyes of certain key characters. We present them here as a special series of devotions this Christmas season. This is from a Wiseman.

I have spent my life searching for truth. I have read the writings of all nations and I have studied the stars. As I have watched the stars move in their regular patterns across the sky, I have come to believe that some great mind planned and placed them there. Furthermore, as one of the school of the Magi, I have studied the human body and learned the healing arts. Again, I have concluded that some great mind must have planned and created this marvelous organism. All my life I have wanted to know and to communicate with the great mind behind these creations.

One night as I was studying the sky, a brilliant new star appeared! I roused my fellow Magi; and together we watched the star move across the sky. At dawn we hurried to the library to search our scrolls for its meaning. I remembered something from the Hebrew writings and finally found it in the fourth book of Moses:

“A star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.”

This new star must signal the birth of a great leader, someone so important to the history of the world that the great mind which directs the stars would set this star in the sky to mark his coming! This star would lead me to truth; I was sure of that.

In the next few days, I sold my belongings for money to make the trip to Israel. What wealth remained I converted to gold, a gift for the great leader when I found him.

The star seemed to go before me to the land of the Hebrews. I inquired in their royal city for the king who had been born and was surprised that no one seemed to know anything about it. King Herod’s advisers came up with a prophecy that a national deliverer would be born in Bethlehem. It amazed me that no one seemed excited about it.

At sunset I arrived at the sleepy village of Bethlehem. The great mind which I sought directed me to the end. The star appeared again and shone down on a little house at the edge of town. As I entered, the star shone through the window on the face of a boy child who sat in the arms of a peasant woman.

I bowed down in worship and offered the gold I had brought. I knew I had entered into the presence of Truth. The great mind of creation was revealed in the form of this little child!

— Grace Frounfelker