God’s got us on our journeys.
Last summer, Cameron and I spent a few days in Switzerland. At one point, we wanted to do an alpine coaster, which is like a super-long slide where you sit in a little cart and you roll down a mountain on a winding track. To get up the mountain, you can take a cable lift or walk. We chose to walk.
It was a relatively short walk, but we had totally misjudged it. It was super steep, and with the blazing sun, it turned out to be a terrible idea! When we finally reached the top, we were soaking wet, our feet filled with blisters, and our arms sunburned.😣
I can imagine that the Kings (or Magi), who visited baby Jesus in Matthew 2:1-16, also regretted at least part of their journey.
They accidentally tipped off Herod, an evil and bloodthirsty king, about the fact that a new King had been born (verses 1-7). As a result, the insecure king who was intimidated by possible competition, ordered the cold-blooded murder of all the male babies of two years old and below–known as “the massacre of the innocents.”
Our journeys, especially spiritual ones, are often not without risk either. We too are surrounded by “Herods”–Christ-hating powers and evil forces. Persecution of Christians is at a rampant high all over the world, including India.
The story of the Magi reminds us that the journey, though imperfect and risky, is worth it when we are in pursuit of God.
God alerted the Magi through a dream that their situation was not what it seemed and gave instructions for how they could return home safely. We don’t have to be perfect in how we seek, but we do need to stay alert to how God is leading us and be responsive to it.
As Ruth Haley Barton writes:
God’s got us on our journeys, just like he had the Magi on theirs.
