At first glance, Matthew’s story of the Magi and Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo seem to belong to very different worlds. One is a sacred text, shaped by prophecy and pilgrimage; the other a children’s story, full of wit, danger, and imagination. Yet both stories invite us to think about power, fear, wisdom and how truth is recognised – or missed.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the Magi arrive in Jerusalem asking a disarming question: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” Their question unsettles the city. Herod, the powerful ruler, is frightened. The religious experts know their Scriptures but do not move. Meanwhile, these outsiders – foreigners and astrologers – are the ones who set out on the road, guided by a star they trust enough to follow.
In The Gruffalo, the mouse survives not through strength, but through imagination and discernment. Faced with predators far bigger than himself, the mouse tells a story, one that turns fear back on those who rely on power. The fox, owl, and snake are undone by the very thing they assume will keep them safe: their confidence in being top of the food chain.
Exposed
Herod, too, relies on power. He believes control will secure his future. Yet like the predators in the forest, he is exposed as deeply afraid. He cannot imagine a kingship that does not threaten him. The Magi, by contrast, are willing to be changed by what they find. When they encounter the child, they kneel. Power bows before vulnerability.
The mouse eventually meets the Gruffalo and discovers that the terrifying creature, that we’ve suspected might be imaginary, is real after all. But even then, the mouse does not panic. He pays attention. He understands how fear works. He notices that the Gruffalo is afraid of him. Wisdom, in this story, is not the absence of danger but the ability to see clearly within it.
Matthew tells us that the Magi are warned in a dream not to return to Herod. Like the mouse choosing a different path through the forest, they go home by another road. Epiphany is not just about seeing the light – it is about allowing that light to change the direction we travel.
Where love is born
Both stories suggest that the world is not ruled only by the biggest voice or the sharpest teeth. God’s kingdom does not arrive with the force Herod expects. It comes quietly, held in a child, recognised by those who are watching carefully enough to see.
Perhaps The Gruffalo endures because it taps into something deeply human: our fear of what looms large, and our hope that wisdom might be stronger than fear. Matthew’s Gospel pushes that hope further. It tells us that God meets fear not with a bigger monster, but with love made most vulnerable.
The Magi bring gifts fit for a king, yet they find no throne – only a child and a mother. And still, they worship. True wisdom, Matthew suggests, is knowing when to kneel.
And perhaps that is the invitation for us, too: when so much of the world is in conflict, we should look and listen for God not in the loudest claims to power, but in the quiet, marginal places where love is born – and to have the courage, like the Magi and the mouse, to walk a different way home. Amen
‘Going home by a different road – the Magi and the Mouse’ was delivered by Ian Banks at St John and St Mark’s during Compline on January 8th 2026. It was based on Matthew 2:1-12 and ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson, available at all good bookshops!