Day 16 - wise men

Yesterday I had the privilege of playing piano in a local church which is a bit short of musicians and needed some help with a carol service.  I had not visited it before and the people were so welcoming and friendly.  As I sat listening to the well worn Bible verses about Christmas to be honest I wasnt really expecting to hear anything new.

But true to form, God is always doing a new thing, speaking a new word, forming a new idea.   And during the talk the minister said something I had never heard before.   He said that Herod was sitting in his palace just seven miles down the road from where Jesus was lying , newly born, in a stable.  Herod's wise men were well versed in scripture, knew all the old testament prophecies and were well aware that Bethlehem was the place ordained by God for the Messiah to appear.   But it took wise men from many miles away - possibly even many countries away, to actually find Jesus.   The men who thought they were at the top of their game couldnt even travel seven miles down the road to meet their Saviour.

It's funny that we call the wise men ' wise'.  Because on the face of it, from a worldly perspective  they weren't very wise at all.  They travelled a great distance, chasing an unusual star in the sky, on the hunch that they would find something important at the end of their journey.  Presumably it cost them quite a bit to travel.  They needed accommodation along the way, probably servants and then of course they brought expensive gifts for the king they believed they would find.  Their friends and families must have thought they were completely bonkers!    Herod's men, on the other hand,  could have walked to Bethlehem in a couple of hours and been home in time for tea. Jesus was right on their doorstep.  But they didnt see it.  They couldnt read the signs in the heavens - they were looking at the signs in scripture and interpreting them through the lens of their own experience.  They didnt look up.  They weren't open to the new thing God was doing.  And they were probably infected by the paranoia of Herod and their loyalty to the existing king.

Perhaps you know people who seem to be really close to finding Jesus.   I certainly do.   It's as though they are camping out just a few miles down the road and all that needs to happen is for them to take a few more steps before they find themselves in His presence.    And then we all also know people who seem a million miles away from God.   We can barely imagine what it would look like for these people to come to faith.  We can't think of how to even start a conversation with them because they are just so .....   distant.    But what Im thinking today is that it isnt about distance.   You can be really close to finding Jesus and never find Him.  And you can be as far away as its possible to get and decide to go on a journey which ends in a saviour.   It's not about distance, its about wisdom.

Herod's wise men and scholars were not ' wise' in the true sense of the word.     The Bible tells us that Godly wisdom is :

The men who travelled from the East, I suspect, showed many more of these characteristics.    Perhaps this Christmas, as we rub shoulders with people we long to introduce to Jesus, we need to be praying for their eyes to be opened and for heavenly wisdom to enlighten them.  And we need to be encouraged that those who seem the furthest away and the most unlikely ever to find Jesus, might just be the ones who see a star, get on their camels and make the trek to find Him.