Guided by God January 1 2006
1st. Sunday after Christmas
Reading: “ Then they returned to their country by another road, since God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod” Matthew 2.12
I was idly looking over our Christmas cards the other evening – like you I have my own favourites – I particularly like those with winter scenes, a stage coach on a country road, with people wearing top hats sitting wrapped in thick overcoats, thick snow all around, and behind in the snow covered fields, a cottage, roof covered in snow, with smoke drifting from its chimney. All very comforting, and cheerful.
I also noticed just how many
cards were of the three wise men. Dressed in deep blues, greens, reds, or
bowing low in the stable or, pictured on their journey, seated on camels with
the night sky and the star above. Many have thought of the wise men with that
last picture in mind – men on a journey, men seeking they know not what, journeying over a thousand miles from Persia
over mountains and across deserts. Seeking, searching – they seem the very picture
of human longing, the desire to find God. That’s certainly the way T.S. Eliot
the poet saw them at the beginning of the poem Journey of the Magi – He has them say ‘A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year For a
journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very
dead of winter.’
All God’s doing
But if we look again at these
verses in Matthew 2, we find that they speak not so much about men on a
journey, men seeking they know not what,
seeking, searching – to find God, but about the living God drawing these
men from their homeland. From start to
finish, this is all God’s doing.
All that the Father gives me will come to me…… says Jesus in John’s gospel. (John 6.37) and Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to me (John 6.45).
These wise men are men who have listened to the Father……….. they have already heard God’s call and have crossed a thousand miles of mountain and desert because of it. These are not in the first place men on a journey, men seeking they know not what, seeking, searching – to find God. No, from the beginning, God has already found them.
And from start
to finish, their journey is all God’s doing. You see, in verse two, when they
arrive in
This passage in the gospel, then, declares to us that it is
He who calls us,
who deepens faith in us,
opens our ears to hear,
draws us to His Son our Lord Jesus, and……..
opens our eyes to see Jesus.
Where ?
The next problem - the next question they have is where ? Where can this baby be found ?
And once again, all of this is in God’s care. Would He bring them all this distance only to leave them floundering and lost ? Only to leave them a thousand miles from home in a foreign country ?
No!
in steadfast faithfulness, the Lord provides.
Where is the baby born to be the king of the Jews ? The answer is there in the Word of God, in the prophets. The One who is born will be found:
In the town of Bethlehem in Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote,
from you will come a leader who will guide my
people
So as we read
through these verses we hear that the Lord has guided these wise men through
the real dangers of a
palace ruled by a despotic King Herod,
onwards to the town of
But more than this in verse 12 we read
that He guides them out of that town, out of a dangerous situation in the days to come ….! Don’t we read:
12
Then they returned to
their country by another road, since God
had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod.
Aren’t there often times when we are in the same situation as those wise men of old – one moment wondering what the next step might be, perhaps even floundering and lost ?
Wondering, like the wise men - Where ? Where next ?
Well, this passage in the gospel declares to us that our situation is in God’s care.
Would He bring us all this distance across the mountains and deserts of life only to leave us floundering and lost ?
Only to leave us a thousand miles from home in a foreign country ?
No!
in steadfast faithfulness, the Lord will guide us through,
and more than this, He will guide us, as He did the wise men,
out of it as well………..
Why ?
And, then finally, this extraordinary thing - verse 11 tells us that the wise men
brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and presented them to the child in the
manger…………..
That’s what we read. But more than this….
they have not come simply to visit this child and bring gifts,
they have come to worship Him.
Worship. Why worship ?
Because this is the only response possible.
For in Jesus, the child in the manger, God the living God, the everlasting Lord, has come among us as a
human being, born as a baby
of a human mother!
In this baby - the
Eternal Son who dwelt with the Father in heaven........ has
taken on himself, our life, become a human being, born among us. The living God
has taken up our human life, and in and through Jesus He has recreated human
life, restored it, recreated us and restored us.
2006
So, here it is. We stand at the first day of a new year.
In a few days we will have learnt to write 2006 at the top of our letters.
But like the wise men our journey continues, a new road is out ahead of us, one we have not travelled before.
There are situations ahead we have never encountered before.
But we know this, don’t we ?
That our life is in God’s care.
That in steadfast faithfulness, the Lord will guide us through,
For in His grace, we have the very gift of life in His Son
our Lord Jesus Christ
AMEN