Follow that GPS
A few years ago our technological society gave us the GPS. For those of you who don't know this stands for Global Positioning System.
The GPS has done a lot for parents trying to drive all over the country to see their children in obscure villages and towns, or in the metropolis of Toronto.
So before a trip you type in your desired location and it gives you step by step directions to get you there. Sometimes it tells you to turn where they are no roads, this is when it gets interesting.
When you type in the location a voice tells you where to turn and in plenty of time too. If you don't listen to it it self-destructs and says "recalculating.” It is a wonderful thing that this little device never gives up on us it will always say "recalculating”and help us.
I have always thought this should have the voice of your mother so when you miss a turn it says "didn't I tell you that would happen, did you not read the map? I always told you that you are who your friends are, and your friends don't know how to use this thing.
But I think living in this society we all need to "recalculate.” We have just finished what 28% of children are taught today, and that is that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ in the manger in Bethlehem. It is becoming a largely secular society. Amid the images of Santa Claus and reindeer in most stores is a small nativity scene hiding under something else, it speaks of humble beginnings, of a baby in a manger filled with hay.
Whether we know it or not we are immersed in this distracting message of the meaning of Christmas.
Indeed in the National Post there was a wonderful article speaking of the easy path to the religion of Santa Claus and the difficult path to Christ.
One speaks of unspeakable abundance of material things in the comfort of a warm home surrounded by tinsel and wrapping paper. The other speaks of a birth in utter poverty of one who would grow up and challenge the religious leaders of his time and eventually be killed on a cross. It is not a warm and fuzzy story and yet when it is lived, and experienced deep within the heart it has the power to transform lives and change people.
So a little "recalculating” may be an ok thing even for those who take their Christian faith seriously.
Well over two thousand years ago there were some wise men who experienced a star as a Global positioning system. They followed it, even when the star had to say "recalculating.” They tredged on from Persia a very long distance. At times they must have wondered where this GPS would lead them, apparently through the desert with little to drink, in the path of dangerous men and animals, to that place where the Christ lay.
On a cold dark night in Persia, three wise men spoke in hushed whispers as they stared at the night sky. "Do you see that” one says to another. "Let me consult my concordance” says the second, and the third says "these balls that balance together on this beam tell me something important. We don't really know who these men were but they have captured our attention from the beginning. Some really good guesses have been astrologers or Magi, fortune tellers. Whatever they were they were consulted for deeper things in that society, things that spoke of wisdom and understanding. Whatever happened that night caused them all to go to Jerusalem. Did they all agree at once? Did they argue? Did any of them have to be convinced of the trip?
In the 2006 movie "The Nativity” a great deal of time is spent on the story of the wise men coming from the East. The movie gives them the names they were given Balthasar, Melchoir, and Caspar. Their characters were developed in depth. We see images of the wise men hard at work in their astrology chamber trying to determine where the star might be headed and when. They are humorous and stumbling type of characters flawed in a good sense, in a humbling and relating sense. Why does the movie spend so much time on the wise men?
It made me think, no imagine the story of the wise men and what that journey must have been like. Did they get tired of one another and bicker back and forth? Who was first, did they race? Where did they stop to sleep. What is clear is that they were determined to follow this GPS star to the place where Jesus lay.
So they set off to Jerusalem where they encountered Herod and asked him where the child to be born king of the Jews was. Herod consulted his clergy who told him Bethlehem. Herod tells the wise men to go to Bethlehem to find the child and to send him word so he can pay him homage.
Then the star appears and they follow it until it stops over a cattle shed, in it they find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloth held by his mother. Light shines all around them, so bright they cannot turn from it. It leads them to be "overwhelmed with joy.” Then they kneel before him and pay him homage. Out of this worship comes their gifts they offer him.
Then the star does not appear they return by another road.
We must also follow this GPS star for it leads us to the true message of Christmas. We can get blinded by the Christmas of materialism.
We need the star and what it points to for our lives of faith. It points to God here among us, in the mess of life to share our gladness and our sadness. Without the star, without that GPS we might miss who is in the manger, and who fills our lives with such grace.
But back to the star. It has led to many theories about its existence. Was it a Supernova, a shooting star? When did it appear? I am not going to spend time immersed in these theories because I don't believe them to be important because we need the star. We need a guidepost, a sign to know where we are going.
This GPS first appeared in the East where the Wise Men saw it and came to Jerusalem to ask Herod "Where is the one born King of the Jews”? Herod sent the Wise Men on to Bethlehem and told them to send word to him when they found him so he could "come and worship him too.” The star led them to Bethlehem where the Messiah was born in humble beginnings.
The second appearance of the star was after they were done with Herod. The star moved ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child lay. They saw the child with his mother and they knelt down and worshiped him. Then they gave him the gifts of Gold, Francincense, and Myrrh.
Then we don't know what happened to the star, perhaps it faded. There are times we no longer need the signposts or the GPS as we can find our own way. Indeed the story suggests that they went home by another road.
When we follow the star to the Messiah child and kneel down and worship him, and offer our gifts to him, his church, we leave the season with the star burning inside our chests and our memories touched by this story once again.
So set your GPS systems to "Bethlehem” by way of the manger and allow God to do a little "recalculating” along the way.
Live this story of the Epiphany once
more this year. Try to hear it differently. Is there a grace God is
trying to give you in the story this year? Where in your life do you
need a star? Are you being called to a particular kind of journey? Is
the church?