The Wise Men chords by Penny Wilcock

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Verse 1
Em 
Now you mustn't
run away with the idea
that just because Mary and Joseph
were poor
and Jesus was poor
all his friends were poor too
because that's not how it was at all.
E 
Em 
Jesus did say it was very very difficult
E 
to be really good and really rich
both at the same time.
He didn't say it was impossible
but it was difficult enough
that he didn't really see
Em 
how it could be done.
But then not all of Jesus' friends
were good.
E 
He didn't have to worry about who his
friends were
because he carried enough
goodness
and love inside himself
for the whole lot of them.
And certainly his friends were a mixed bag,
rich and poor, good and bad, all
sorts together.
In fact he had some really funny friends,
did Jesus.
The thing that was the same about all of them
was that they couldn't
help loving him.
They could see there was something about
Jesus
that was better than anything
else life had to offer
and that something was
the way he loved them I think.
Anyway, right at the beginning of his life
when he was just a toddler
Jesus found out he had some very
rich friends indeed.
Now I want you
to imagine this if you can.
Far away from where Jesus was born,
a long time before Jesus was born,
in the land of perfume and spices,
the mysterious Orient,
There lived some wise men,
and their wisdom came
from learning about the stars.
They knew the names of all the stars
that were known to humankind,
and they knew about the slow dancing
of the stars in the sky.
They even knew what the movements of the stars meant,
as if it was a kind of language.
D 
These were wonderful men,
E 
wise and watchful,
with thin dark faces and long
black beards.
They had the darkest brown eyes,
and beautiful hands with long
fingers.
They didn't go to discos or parties,
because they were too busy thinking.
They didn't spend their evenings
like the shepherds did,
talking and laughing round the fire,
playing musical instruments and telling
stories.
Not them.
They would spend their evenings
in high towers,
as close to the sky as they could be,
gazing on the mystery of the night,
and gathering the secrets of the stars
as they traced their shining dance.
They were quiet, solemn, serious men.
They didn't smile very much,
but when they did,
their white teeth would flash in their dark faces
like moonlight sparkling on water,
and their eyes would dance
and twinkle like stars.
Nobody knows their names for sure,
because it was all so long ago and far away, day,
but it is said their names were
Caspar
and Melchior and Balthazar.
They were fabulously rich,
and they wore long robes and cloaks
in deep rich colours of purple and
ochre and crimson.
Their hats were embroidered
with threads of pure gold,
and here and there,
as they climbed the stairs
to the top of their starry tower,
you might catch a gleam of a ruby,
or a sapphire, fire, or an emerald,
like flashes of secret fire
scattered in their robes.
And as they watched the stars,
Balthasar and Caspar and Melchior
discovered a marvellous thing.
Something they had been searching for for a long,
long time.
One day, over the horizon of the dark night sky,
there arose a new and beautiful star. star.
The wise men knew all the stars by
sight and by name,
and it was none of the stars
they knew.
It was a royal star, of resplendent beauty,
and it meant the king
of the whole world
had been born.
So, terribly excited in their quiet,
dignified, serious sort of a way,
Melchior, and Balthasar,
and Caspar,
got ready for a journey.
They wanted to find the one who'd been born king of the whole world,
so that they could bow down before him
and let him know they would serve him,
even in the land of spices far away.
They went to the shops of
the merchants.
Not like shops we have
with counters and tills
and things hanging up everywhere,
and lots of bright lights.
No, their shops were in dark
alleys
of houses built close together,
D 
with only a small dusty sign
E 
hanging on the outside saying things like
Zoroaster's Gold Refinery
and Perfumes of Araby
and The Orient Express,
and when you got inside the shops,
they were just dim little rooms
where a merchant or a craftsman
kept his wares.
Not an easy place to go shopping
if you're on holiday,
but the wise men knew just where to go
and just what they wanted to buy
as presents for the new -born king.
I think you know what they brought him,
don't you? They bought him a piece of pure gold,
because gold in their land
was a sign of being a king.
They bought him frankincense,
which is stuff that you burn,
and when you burn it
it makes the most beautiful perfume.
In the eastern land where the wise men lived,
frankincense was burnt as a prayer,
burnt as an offering to
God.
And they bought him Myrrh.
Myrrh has a wonderful perfume too,
but myrrh is not used for
prayer.
Myrrh, in the land of the wise men,
was put on the body of someone who had died,
and it was a sign of death.
What strange presents to take!
Gold, because they knew
Jesus was a king.
Frankincense, because they
knew
that when they had found their way to Jesus,
they would have found
their way to God.
Myrrh, because they knew
Jesus was born to suffer and die.
And they put on their beautiful cloaks,
and they packed
their presents carefully
in boxes of carved sandalwood,
and they set off by night,
following the bright shining
of a star.
And one of them rode a horse,
and one of them rode an elephant,
and one of them rode a camel.
It was a long, long journey.
But because they were quiet, and serious,
and dignified,
they knew how to be patient,
and none of them ever asked,
Are we nearly there yet?"
They just carried on and on,
for weeks and months,
through deserts and jungles,
along narrow passes,
over high mountains covered with snow,
through towns and villages
and along country roads,
until at last they came to the
Em 
place where Jesus was.
E 
And they knew when it was the right place,
because their star stopped right
there.
So they did too. Journeys end.
And then,
just as humble as the shepherds
in all their poverty,
they too knocked politely at the door
and waited to be asked in,
and they wiped their feet carefully,
and came up to little Jesus,
and they kneeled right down
on the ground,
bending low so that their foreheads
even touched the floor,
and they offered him their gifts of gold,
E 
and frankincense, and myrrh,
and then they went back home.
You see what I mean about Jesus
having some funny friends?
If you think about it,
it seems odd,
doesn't it, to go all that long way
just to give someone a
present?
Why not just put it in the post?
Well I think it was because they wanted,
even once,
to be in the same place,
in the same room with Jesus.
Because the wonderful
thing about Jesus
was the way he loved you,
and it was worth crossing
mountains and the desert,
to be in the presence of
his loving and his peace.
So that was an interesting thing,
really,
that they, the wise men,
who were so very clever,
and so fabulously rich,
thought more of the gift Jesus gave them,
of kindness and love,
which any one can afford to give,
than of all the perfumes and
gold of Arabia,
which they laid in homage at his feet.
I hope he was pleased with his presence,
even if they seem a bit strange to you and me.