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As a homiletics professor, I would be inclined to give Jesus a passing grade, and not just because he is Jesus.

—hijacked into foil-gilded greeting cards,
sung into libretti over organ chords. Sultans
or astrologers?  They trekked into the unknown
on a hunch, launched out from some far land
of distress or empty comforts looking for a shred
of truth, or inspiration, through an aperture
of prophecy. Did they seek liberation, or simply
a moment to see into the ultimate? No matter
they tumbled into a tyrant’s path, beneath a comet’s
tail, stumbled into more misery: an outcast couple
and infant sheltered in a cattle-scented shed. Yet

I think the disciples were a bit like detectives.

After the Birth,
The season of light—
Out of the darkness,
The moonflower opens,
Luminous, petals
Unfurling in the night,
As the star beckons,
Guiding us across
The lunar landscape
To the stable lit
By new life, a candle
Cradled, light bearing
Light.

John the Baptist's world and ours

This story sounds like a video game.