Go. Persist. Study: How to Follow God's GPS

Date: January 4, 2009
Christian Year: Epiphany Sunday
Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12

Driving west out of Craig, Colorado – a small, mining town tucked in the northwest corner of the state – you pass a white highway sign that reads “Next Services 120 miles.” It is almost intimidating enough to make a traveler turn around and cancel his trip. But 12 years ago I headed west along that road toward Dinosaur National Monument. There along the Colorado-Utah state line visitors could view ongoing excavation of dinosaur fossils.

Now, I’ll admit that took off without a map and with only a vague notion of where I was going. I didn’t really know exactly where I was headed, but I had heard that there was a national monument out there. So, I figured I would just follow the signs along the highway until I arrived at my destination. With that in mind I set off through the sagebrush desert following the signs that guided me toward my hoped-for destination. Those signs pointed me down narrow back roads many of which did not even have a yellow stripe painted down the center.

Finally, I arrived at the campsite where I would be staying. It was a beautiful campsite with nice flat spots marked out for tents and toilets and showers ready for campers’ use. It was just yards from the lush green banks of the Yampa River. It was all that a camper could hope for. So I set up my tent, ate lunch, content that I had survived my mapless journey to this outdoor palace.
Feeling pretty comfortable, I began to ask the park rangers, “Where are the dinosaur fossils that I came to see?” The park rangers replied, “You’ve missed the mark. The fossils are on the other side of the river valley. You have to travel further down the road.”

Maybe I should have bought a map, paid closer attention to the signs, or God forbid, asked for directions. This morning we begin the season of Epiphany, the time when we remember and celebrate Christ’s being presented to the world. On this Epiphany Sunday we awake to discover that the Christmas parties are over, the presents are unwrapped, the musicals have been performed, the candlelight services have been held, and families are returning to their homes. On this Sunday we find that even though Christ has been manifest in our presence, born unto us on Christmas Day, we are still asking, “Where is Christ in my life? What’s really changed?” For many of us who have been worn down and worn out by the Christmas season, it feels a little like we have arrived at our campsite only to find out it is still on the wrong side of the river valley. And so we have to pack up all our stuff and keep moving to find our hoped-for destination.

Even as we pack up and renew that quest for Christ, we do not undertake this endeavor alone. This morning we are reminded that others have traveled this path before us. Others have been here before us, and our Scripture reading this morning reminds us that the group of people we call magi can be our spiritual guides on this Sunday two weeks after Christmas and in the weeks and months that follow.

The Gospel of Matthew gives us really very little information about the magi, and maybe it is for this reason that so much legend has been attached to this story. Matthew gives us no names for those travelers, nor does the gospel tell us how many of these strangers there were, only that those who did make the journey carried with them three gifts. So, when we strip away all the extraneous stories that have accumulated atop the magi over the centuries, we find these magi to be people like you and me: people who were sytill seeking God in the days and weeks following Christmas, people on a spiritual journey to their hoped-for destination.

In all likelihood the magi came from Persia, or as we call it today Iran, which certainly doesn’t strengthen their case by today’s standards. Depending on whom you ask they could have been priests or magicians or astrologers; we frequently lump all those titles together and call them wise men. In at least some circles they gained the attention of rulers and royal courts; perhaps that is why in our seasonal hymns we sometimes call them the Three Kings of the Orient.

Call them what you will, but what we do know is that by accident or by trade the magi were watching the sky two millennia ago when they saw there in the heavens something miraculous: a star which like highway signs pointing the way to a comfortable campground told them that a long-anticipated king, an answer to their spiritual seeking, the hoped-for destination had been born.

Through the years there have been numerous attempts to explain this celestial body. Some have suggested a comet blazed across the sky; others suggest that planets had aligned in such a way as to indicate an event of cosmic proportions. Based on the description of the way the star traveled across the sky – moving and stopping – I tend to think the gospel is describing a more miraculous occurrence and that Matthew is referring to a heavenly sign that God is taking the initiative and leading people to respond.

So we stand just four days into a new calendar year the magi are our spiritual guides because whatever explanation we choose for the Christmas star, Matthew tells us that the magi – and no one else – were observant enough to notice it. The magi alone observe the natural world and properly interpret it as attesting to God’s presence and purposes at work in the world. The magi remind us to attune ourselves to God’s working in the world because while we have opportunities to learn in church and through study, God will also guide us in the everyday world if we are observant enough to see.

Of course being observant can be a difficult proposition. Look at where it landed these spiritual seekers. The magi saw the star, and they followed all the signs. They heeded the sign that warned them that this was going to be a difficult journey: “Warning: next oasis 3-day’s journey.” Still they go. They set off through the sandy desert following the sign that guided them toward their hoped-for destination. They traveled down narrow, poorly marked paths until they arrived in Jerusalem with its buildings, its wells and marketplaces and, oh yes, its palace.

“Ah ha!” say the magi who are astute enough to know that the star that they alone have observed attests to the birth of new king. “We will look for this new king in the place where kings reside: the palace, and there we will pay this new king homage.”

So, the magi, being the type of people who have some access to kings and their palaces, go to Herod, who was assigned by the Roman Empire to be King of the Jews. They say to Herod, “We have followed the signs, coming a long distance through sparsely populated desert and wilderness along narrow, poorly marked roads. Please tell us, where is the new king?”

Herod’s response to the news that a new king has been born is quite a contrast from the magi’s response. Quite apart from joy and the willingness to travel great distances, Herod responds with fear. He is troubled. He is disturbed. Perhaps with reason. This is not good news for King Herod; it is clash of two kingdoms, and the magi’s spiritual quest has landed right in the middle of the conflict. It would be a little bit like going to the White House and asking to see the next President of the United States because you are ready to follow his or her rule. It probably wouldn’t sit very well with the current president.

A confused and frightened Herod calls together all the scholars, the Biblical experts, and the religious rulers and asks them, “What are these wise guys talking about – a new king!?!” This gathering of experts and elites who are obviously too blind or too comfortable or too incapable of recognizing Jesus replies, “They have seen a star!?! And they are here? Well, they must know only half the story for while the prophet Isaiah spoke or a star rising at the birth of the new king, the prophet Micah made it clear that that new king would be born in Bethlehem – a tiny village down the road on the other side of the fertile valley between two ridges.”

Herod tells these spiritual seekers, “The new king is not here. He’s in Bethlehem, but go there quickly and find the child. Then come back here immediately and tell me where he is. I’d really like to meet him …”

Here’s where the beautiful reality of the nativity story and the peaceful scenes of Christ’s birth come to a screeching halt. Herod had no intentions of worshipping the newborn Christ. He had no intention of sharing power and relinquishing his title as king of the Jews. Herod had in mind a murderous response to this manifestation of God’s presence and power which threatened his own rule. It’s a response he carries out by ordering the execution of all children born around the time Jesus’ birth.

The magi head down the road to Bethlehem where they find Jesus and his mother not in a stable or a cave or in a manger, but in a house. There in that home they open their treasure chests and finally offer the new king, Jesus, their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Much has been made of these gifts and what they might symbolize. But remember, these magi were magicians or astrologers or priests and the precious metals and spices and the incense that they carried with them were probably nothing more that the tools of their trade: the frankincense an aromatic resin used in religious ceremonies, the myrrh used for anointing or as a perfume or to make ink for sacred writings. So these spiritual seekers, our guides through these days following Christmas, don’t stop off at the Bethlehem mall to buy gifts fit for a newborn king like Berberry jumpers, Prada booties and a rattle from Tiffany’s; rather, they come to Christ as they are, bringing what they already have.

I think that is how God calls to us today. Not to come as something we aren’t or to bring things we don’t already have. Rather, God calls us now and in the coming year to bring what we already have – our time, our talents, our abilities – and offer them to Christ.

I think that the real miracle of the magi is that they persist in their journey even after they missed the mark. The magi are told that what they seek is not there in Herod’s palace, and they are sent down the road, their quest as yet unfinished, and their hoped-for destination still further down the road. They have to repack their camels. Put away their offerings. Wait a little longer and keep going.

I can only imagine how frustrated the magi must be at this point. They probably wondered if they had misidentified the star in the sky or if they had misinterpreted its message or how they had lost sight of that star and ended up in such an unholy place as Herod’s temple. We don’t know how long they traveled, but certainly they were worn out and road weary. I’m sure they were looking forward to at least one night in the royal palace with a nice, flat comfortable place to lie down and rest for the night. I’m certain they were tempted to simply give their gifts to the first king they found.

It is frightening to think about what could have been for the magi. They could have given away their livelihoods to a greedy and misguided king. They could have poured out their gold and spices and burned their incense right there in the king’s court. They could have become servants of power-hungry and murderous king. This is the frightening part of our spiritual journeys as well. As we prepare to enter into a new year we do well to reassess the stars we follow in our lives for the stars in our eyes may get us close but they are not always the ones that lead us to Christ.

In many ways we are making that same spiritual journey the magi made. It is a journey to find and honor God. As we make this journey the Good News for us on this Epiphany Sunday is that the light of Christ is still shining if we are studious enough to see it, if we are willing enough to go to it, an if we are persistent enough to follow it. That light shines even when we miss the mark and end up miles away from our hoped-for destination. But even when we end up in elaborate palaces at the foot of rulers who would take our treasure and livelihoods away, that light is still shining, illuminating our way forward.

“You’ve missed the mark,” the park ranger told me. “The destination you seek is on the other side of the river valley. You have to travel the other way down the road.”

I suppose I could have altered my itinerary and stayed in that comfortable riverside campsite never making it down the road to see those dinosaur fossils. But instead I packed up my tent and my sleeping bag and all of my camping gear and headed another 40 miles down the road.
I knew I wasn’t going to live in Craig, Colorado forever. And honestly I didn’t know how many times I’d be willing or able to drive those long, lonely roads through sagebrush desert. As it turns out just a few summers ago for safety reasons the national monument closed down indefinitely the building that houses the dinosaur fossils excavation site. It seems that the rafters were buckling and the parking lot cracking because of some unforeseen geologic stresses. So, my trip may very well have been a once in a lifetime opportunity. One that I would have missed had I been satisfied or frustrated by missing the mark.

And so the magi’s encounter with the infant Jesus was also a once in a lifetime opportunity. One that they would have missed had they been satisfied with Herod’s palace or frustrated at initially arriving short of their hoped-for destination. Shortly after the magi left the new king, Jesus and his family fled into Egypt to escape Herod’s murderous response to God’s initiative in Jesus Christ. As far as we know the magi and Jesus never crossed paths again, but we do know that the magi’s journey continued. May we be willing to continue our once in a lifetime journey as well. In the name of Christ. Amen.