Daily Devotion for September 4, 2026
This intensely saturated depiction of the Magi was the largest watercolor painted in the entire 19th Century. Note the depiction of the Star of Bethlehem as a light held by an angel. (See Full-sized.)
Prayers
Scripture
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
Rachmaninoff’s Russian-language Ave Maria has an unspeakable, ethereal beauty. Our “Classical Friday” selection.
Blagoslovyena Ty v zhenakh,
To Give Our Will to God
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it.
All is yours now; dispose of it wholly according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace; that is enough for me.
Praise to the Power of God
How great and how close art Thou in the powerful track of the storm! How mighty Thy right arm in the blinding flash of the lightning! How awesome Thy majesty! The voice of the Lord fills the fields, it speaks in the rustling of the trees. The voice of the Lord is in the thunder and the downpour. The voice of the Lord is heard above the waters. Praise be to Thee in the roar of mountains ablaze. Thou dost shake the earth like a garment; Thou dost pile up to the sky the waves of the sea. Praise be to Thee, bringing low the pride of man. Thou dost bring from his heart a cry of Penitence: Alleluia!
The dark storm clouds of life bring no terror to those in whose hearts Thy fire is burning brightly. Outside is the darkness of the whirlwind, the terror and howling of the storm, but in the heart, in the presence of Christ, there is light and peace, silence: Alleluia!
Meditation
“When we become too glib in prayer we are most surely talking to ourselves.”
Benediction
Now all glory to you, mighty God, who is able to keep me from falling away and will bring me with great joy into your glorious presence without a single fault. All glory to you who alone are God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. All glory, majesty, power, and authority are yours before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time,
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.
Micah 5:2,4 (KJV)
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.
Matthew 2:1-10 (Phillips NT)
The Magi and the Star
esus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, in the days when Herod was king of the province. Not long after his birth there arrived from the east a party of Magi making for Jerusalem and enquiring as they went, “Where is the child born to be king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and we have come here to pay homage to him.”
When King Herod heard about this he was deeply perturbed, as indeed were all the other people living in Jerusalem. So he summoned all the Jewish scribes and chief priests together and asked where “Christ” should be born.
Their reply was: “In Bethlehem, in Judea, for this is what the prophet [Micah] wrote about the matter — ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
Then Herod invited the wise men to meet him privately and found out from them the exact time when the star appeared. Then he sent them off to Bethlehem saying, “When you get there, search for this little child with the utmost care. And when you have found him come back and tell me — so that I may go and worship him too.”
The wise men listened to the king and then went on their way to Bethlehem. And now the star, which they had seen in the east, went in front of them as they travelled until at last it shone immediately above the place where the little child lay. The sight of the star filled them with indescribable joy.
Notes on the Scripture
The Magi were an odd mixture of holy men, intellectuals, astrologers, and soothsayers; they were seekers after spiritual truth, rather than priests tightly bound to a specific religion. They were based primarily in Persia and Arabia. They were not so much polytheistic — worshipping a specific set of known gods — as syncretic, for they were open to many schools of thought and new ideas.
A number of Old Testament prophets foretold the coming of a Messiah, as most readers will know, and Micah correctly predicted His birthplace. But many readers of Matthew do not realize that the prophecy was widespread: holy men throughout the Roman and Middle Eastern worlds had a notion that a great ruler was expected to arise in Judea.
Suetonius, a prominent 1st century Roman historian, recounted that during this time, “An ancient and positive conviction prevailed throughout the East, that the Fates had decided one should come from Judea to rule over all the world.” Even the famous Tacitus wrote of it: “Many believed, from ancient books of their priests, that at that very time the East should rise in victory, and that someone from Judea would come to assert dominion over all the land.”
Surely the Magi knew of the Jewish prophecy of a Messiah; probably, some of their scholars had actually read much of the Old Testament. This, combined with their strong interest in astrology, excited enormous interest when an unknown source of light suddenly appeared in the sky.
They called it a “star”, but we must understand this as a generic term for any source of light in the sky without distinguishable features, for it almost certainly was not a star in the strict sense. It appeared out of nowhere, came to rest directly above Bethlehem, then disappeared. There is a very strong inference that God sent some sort of light to announce Christ's birth; the physical makeup of it has no significance. (The Burne-Jones painting at the top of this page represents the star as an angel, which makes as much sense as anything.)
The Magi, or wise men, were able to deduce this very fact, with so much certainty that they prepared expensive gifts and traveled westward to visit and honor this new king; they were convinced, somehow, that it heralded the fulfillment of the prophecy. Moreover they, themselves, felt “indescribable joy” about the event; so apparently, they were convinced that this new king would indeed bring a new age of peace extending beyond Judea.
Herod, famously, had no intention of allowing a great king to exist inside his borders. With Machiavellian duplicity, he attempted to enlist the Magi as his agents. Matthew intends dramatic irony, for we immediately recognize that Herod’s intent is not to worship the Christ child, but to kill Him.
