Do wise people still seek Jesus?

Open your eyes to your hunger for God. Open your heart and mind to the possibility that God exists.

One year, my husband decided to surprise me with a CD of one of my favourite artists for Christmas. Great! Except he hid that gift unwrapped in his underpants drawer—as I discovered while putting away the laundry. Here’s a tip: If you’re going to hide unwrapped Christmas presents, find a spot where they really are hidden!

The wise men who visited baby Jesus, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, lived a long way from Bethlehem. They were scholars, probably astrologers. They were on a mission of discovery and were soon to learn that some things are not hidden where you’d expect them to be.

The road to Bethlehem

According to Matthew’s gospel (read 2:1-12), the wise men followed a star. Th eir research told them this was a sign the king of the Jews had been born. Even though the wise men weren’t Jewish, they wanted to pay their respect to this new king, whose birth they saw as having global significance.

Their quite reasonable assumption was that the place to find a new king was in a palace. So that’s where they headed—to King Herod’s palace in Jerusalem. That God’s long-promised Saviour- Messiah had been born may have been exciting news to these foreigners, but to Herod it was a deeply disturbing prospect. He called together the Jewish religious teachers, who fi lled him in on a prophecy from Micah 5:2 that pointed to Bethlehem as the Messiah’s likely birthplace:

But you, Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.

Herod knew such a nationalistic figure could upset the fragile peace between the Jews and the Romans, but more importantly, he feared it could upset his own position of authority. So he lied to the wise men, pointing them to Bethlehem and asking them to return and tell him where the baby was so he too could worship. Even though his true intent was to kill the child.

The wise men eventually came to where the infant Jesus was staying. This was some days after Jesus’ birth, which means the Christmas card depiction of angels, shepherds and wise men gathered around Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the stable must be seen as ‘artistically creative’, not historically accurate.

By the end of his life, Herod had killed his brother-in-law, mother-in-law, three of his sons and his own wife. So perhaps it wasn’t a surprise to the wise men when God warned them to give Herod a wide berth as they headed home.

Who seeks God today?

Isaiah 55: 6-7 (Msg) urges us to seek out God—as the wise men did all those years ago—promising the experience of the forgiveness that secures salvation as our destination:

Seek God while he’s here to be found, pray to him while he’s close at hand. Let the wicked abandon their way of life and the evil their way of thinking. Let them come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.

This is an urgent task. We need to get right with God today, because none of us is guaranteed tomorrow. But there are other reasons beyond the lasting peace of forgiveness for why we should seek God.

God can give us comfort and strength to endure the more difficult experiences of life. God can help us in our times of disappointment, illness and grief. God can guide us when things get confusing in our relationships, in our finances, in our major life decisions.

Of course, God is far more than a solution to the personal challenges we face; God also brings meaning and purpose to our living in community. God strengthens our character so we are able to live good and honest lives, God helps us look beyond our small-thinking selfishness to the needs of others, and God leads us achieve acts of justice and value that benefit our world. Why would we want to close ourselves to lives of such quality?

Is God hidden?

When we do choose to look for God, this is no desperate game of hide and seek. God does not make this a matter of chance or something too diffi cult for all but the wisest and most persistent. As Isaiah 45: 18-19 says:

For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it … he says: ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, “Seek me in vain.”

God is the one who made us and the one we need, and God assures us he is waiting to be found by us. Although perhaps ‘waiting to be noticed’ would be a better way of expressing this. When we do decide to notice God, this is when faith kicks in. Hebrews 11:6 (Msg) says:

‘It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.’

So yes, we must seek—we must open our eyes to our hunger for God, and we must open our hearts and minds to the possibility that God exists. But when we do this, we sense that God is near. Which is because God loves us.

At this point, we can voice whatever words come from our heart, praying and telling God that we believe he exists, that we are ready to abandon a life that excludes God’s infl uence, and that we are ready to take God up on that off er of mercy and free pardon.

Wise men and women still seek God today. How wise are you?

---

by Christina Tyson (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 26 November 2016, pp20-21
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.