During my 5 years of theological study at The Divinity School, Duke University and Reformed Seminary, and when I taught at The Center for Urban Theological Studies in Philadelphia, I always maintained an interest in the intersection of art, poetry, mysticism, and an a penchant for songwriting, so it may have been inevitable that I would eventually turn to a longer format for synthesizing theological and aesthetic impulses.
I got the idea for this project from my brother, who decades before me wrote a complete rock opera about the “three wise men” and their epic visit to Jerusalem. I began my version with an acoustic guitar and it kept growing on me over the past 10 years or so. I have reused the classic carol We Three Kings and the hymn Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning more or less in their entirety, but I joined the sections for each of the three magi into separate songs. I wrote narrative sections based closely on scriptures, particularly Matthew 2, where the story of the visitation of the magi is told. The concluding song is a translation of a hymn written by Martin Luther in 1535.
