Materials

Searching For A Star #4


Home By Another Way
Matthew 2:1-12
R. Todd Bouldin

Today on Christmas Day we come to the end of our Advent sermons as we come to a text that also ends Matthew’s account of the journey of the wise men to the Christ child. The infancy narratives, as scholars refer to them, in both Matthew and Luke present very different people and the roads that took them to the birth of their salvation. Even today, people still are taking many different journeys to their their destination in Jesus Christ.

Prayer

Mary and Joseph discovered their salvation after a great interruption in their lives. That’s how many of us will find ours too. Mary was not expecting to be expecting, and Joseph certainly wasn’t expecting it either. We don’t know for sure, but I imagine that they had quiet respectable and reasonable dreams: running a small carpentry business, have a decent home and a good family, settle into their life in Nazareth. But all of those ordinary dreams came crashing to the ground the day an angel showed up and told Mary that she was pregnant. And so on the night before Christmas, so to speak, they are on a road that will take them far away from the dreams that they had imagined to a stable behind an inn in Bethlehem. There Mary will give birth to an unexpected baby, and their whole lives will be different when they return home by a different way than they came.

Maybe you’re on the same road this Christmas. A year ago, you would have never predicted that your life would look the way it does now. Something happened to you along the way, and now life looks entirely different than it did before this interruption. Maybe your health has taken a turn for the worse, or a loved one died this year. Maybe an important relationship has failed, a friend has moved, or you were forced to move from a home and friends that you loved. So maybe you can relate to the disappointment, the frustration, the shame and even the loneliness that Mary and Joseph felt in this situation that was so different than the dreams they had for their lives. But even in the midst of this different road, you perceive that something mysteriously wonderful may be conceived on this different journey. It is something you cannot comprehend yet, but you think that maybe it is a ray of light that could pierce through the darkness. And, just like Mary, you take all of this in and you ponder it in your heart as you travel a road that is different than the way you expected.

Some discover Christ on an unexpected road of mysterious and quiet interruption. Others, like the shepherds, first encounter Christ in a magnificent event. The shepherds saw the angels break forth in song, proclaiming the glory and peace of God. They can’t explain it to anyone else, but something miraculous and awe inspiring occurred that brought them to Jesus. They were just minding their business one day, then the angels sang, or a word was spoken, or an illness was healed, or a strange but convicting event happened, and they came to experience Jesus Christ. And like the shepherds who encountered Jesus, they go their way giving thanks and praise. Too often these people get too centered on the miracle, and they forget that the miracle was only there to take you down a road to Jesus Christ.

For many of us though, we did not find Jesus in some dramatic event like the shepherds or in some mysterious interruption like Joseph and Mary. We encountered Jesus like the wise men of Matthew’s story. Perhaps the most striking thing about this story of the wise men is that it is the only road taken by the Christmas cast of characters that contains nothing that is hard to believe. There are no miracles in this story, no angels, and no one is talking to God.

Matthew’s story of the wise men just depicts some men trying to find some hope with their minds, and they were doing what scholars did in their day: they followed the stars. They get lost, stop and ask for some directions, and they finally arrive at their destination. Nothing really unbelievable here that you have to muster a great amount of faith to believe. The story of the wise men is for all of those who find it difficult to come to Jesus by way of miracles and mysterious experiences. An angel did not speak to everyone about the birth, and not everyone heard the angels sing on the night Jesus was born. Some, like these wise men, were just trying to follow the next logical step on their way to hope.

I like this text because many of us are on our way to Jesus, not on the roads of miracles or mysteries, but on the journey of the mind. The good news in this text is that those who are searching for wisdom can find it, and those looking for a Savior will find Him. You may have to follow a few stars, chase a few leads, and ask for directions a few times. But in the words of one who found herself on a life-long search for Jesus Christ, Simone Weil, “Christ invites us to seek the truth and prefer it even to Him. Because before being the Christ, He is The Truth. If one turns aside from Him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into His arms.” So seek the truth, but truth eventually will lead you to the arms of the One who says, “I am the Truth.” (John 14:6)

The reason the “wise men” were wise was not because they were on a search. We all can search. They were wise because they knew when to embrace the Truth when they found Him.

So we all will come to Jesus along different roads, but He will always be the destination. By this, I do mean “religions” or faith traditions. By different roads, I mean all of the life experiences by which we come to faith, and that is different for each of us. Some of us will come on the road that leads us away from the life we expected. Others will come on the way that originates in mystery and miracles. Others of us will come to Christ on the road of honest intellectual inquiry, or from following a star that just happens to stop at the place where our Lord is waiting for us. The Gospels make it clear that any of these roads can lead you to Jesus Christ.

After worshiping and giving their treasure to Jesus, as we saw last week, Matthew says that these wise men “left for their country by a different road.” They received a dream, and the dream told them to avoid Herod, the tyrant who had been sucking all of the life out of his people, and to head home by a different way. It wasn’t the road that brought them to this place, and it was a different road than they expected, but it was a road that would lead them to life and not death. Matthew also says that Joseph and Mary also returned home to Nazareth by a different way than they had come. Their journey took them to Egypt first, then to Nazareth instead of Judea, until after Herod’s death. After you have encountered Jesus, you often can’t go back home again on the same roads that you’ve been traveling. Those roads will lead to your death. An unexpected way will lead you to life.

Maybe it’s time for you to go home on a different road than you’ve been following too. The road you’ve been journeying on is just taking you back to the same places over and over again, back to the place where some Herod is sucking the life out of you. If you are to live, you are going to have to get on a different road. Perhaps you expected that you could encounter Jesus then walk back home the way you came. But that wasn’t true for Joseph and Mary, and it wasn’t true for the wise men, and it won’t be true for you.

Seeing the Savior makes any road a sacred one because once you meet Him you will know that you no longer are alone. That changes all the roads that you will travel. It opens up life and all of the roads become delightfully mysterious and graciously welcomed. Once you know that a Savior has come into your midst, all the roads that lead from that moment are ones to be embraced and not avoided.

God will often lead you home by a different way than you expected. When that road appears, walk down it and embrace it. It most likely is leading you to life. But you will never even discover that road until you bow your knees before the Christ Child who longs to be embraced by you, who yearns for your worship.

To capture a dream that will save your life, you will have to let go of all the treasures you’ve been clinging to and give them to the Christ child. When you do, He will show you a new road that leads to life. That is why He can claim that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The good news is that He will not ask you to walk down any road on which He does not go with you. That is what it means that He is Emmanuel, God with us, this Christmas: God with us on the roads before us, God with us on the roads different than the ones we expected, God with us on the roads that will lead us to our true Wisdom, our Destiny and our Home.

Merry Christmas!


December 25, 2005

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