Summary: Like the biblical Magi, we can experience the holy God in nature. Yet we discover the nature of our God through worship and the scriptures.
She waved from the other end of the parking lot to say, "Hi, pastor! How are you?" Returning her shopping cart to the front entrance of the supermarket, she wore a red parka. Her hair was pulled back in a hair band and her cheeks were flushed.
"I'm sorry I haven't been to church this winter," she confessed. "I bought a ski pass, and the lines are the shortest on Sunday morning." The pastor stood there with an artificial smile, trying to look cheerful.
She continued, "You ought to see the view from the top of that mountain. It is beautiful up there. Peaceful, too. And to tell you the truth, I feel much closer to God up on that mountain than I usually do in church."
How would you respond if somebody told you something like that? Many of us love the outdoors. For many, there is nothing more enjoyable than a quiet getaway in the wilderness. And if we are honest, the church can be a busy, anxious place where it is difficult to relax, much less experience the presence of God. As one overworked volunteer admitted, "Whenever I go to church, I always end up agreeing to do something. Sometimes I stay home on Sunday because, frankly, I need a break."
And yet something seems incomplete when someone says they feel closer to God out there than they do in here. Let's take that all-too-common comment seriously.
Who can doubt it? Nature can reveal the presence of God. It is possible to take a walk on the beach, climb a mountain or swat a golf ball, and end up speaking a prayer of adoration. God gives us a beautiful world. There is no desert so desolate that we do not see God's fingerprints from creating it. If we look beyond this world, there are solar systems of intricate design and stars still uncharted. The immense size of creation invokes awe, directing us toward the intelligent Creator who made it.
That is what prompts the familiar story of the wise men. The Magi search for Jesus because they have seen a sign in the world out there. An unusual star appears in the sky, and it causes them to recalculate their settled ideas about the universe. Clearly God is up to something, and the whole creation testifies to a new and wonderful act.
What is God doing? The wise men assume a new king has been born. In his commentary on the story, Raymond Brown notes that ancient historians interpreted the skies through the births and deaths of famous people. The Roman historian Suetonius, for instance, claimed that the birth of Augustus was predicted by an unusual portent in the heavens. Emperor Nero became so alarmed when a comet appeared in the sky that he ordered the deaths of notable people in his realm.1
No one in the first century would have missed the connection between the unusual star and the birth of a significant new leader. But where was he born? To what royal family? Under what political circumstances? And what kind of king will he be? The Magi cannot presume to know. Their knowledge is incomplete.
That is an important lesson to remember. As someone has said, getting your guidance by following a star means the directions are going to be a little vague.
For the past five hundred years, we have turned to science to answer many questions. Scientists have analyzed the universe, discovered the laws of physics, studied the human body and put bacteria under a microscope. We have learned a lot of things, many of them helpful and important. But there are many gaps in our knowledge.
We can learn a lot about the God who made everything, but we cannot be sure what kind of God it is. There are sparkling waterfalls, bright autumn leaves and radiant sunsets. But there are also black holes, mutating cancer cells and raging storms that destroy without apparent purpose. Look at the star in the sky! It is obvious something big is happening, but we are not exactly certain what it is.
A star can tell you that God is at work in the universe, but i t cannot tell you where, how or why. And so, we bring our uninterpreted experiences of the world out there to the scriptures that are kept inside the sanctuary. Then we listen to how the scriptures read our experiences.
That is what the Magi had to do. They had seen a star out there in creation and believed a new king had been born somewhere." Naturally, they went to the Jerusalem palace because that is where kings can be found. However, old king Herod is still sitting on the throne, and he was not about to welcome news of a new king.
Fortunately for the wise men, there were religious people on Herod's payroll. They knew what the Hebrew scriptures reported about the birth of Israel's new leader. The chief priests and scribes opened the scrolls to the fifth chapter of Micah.2 They announced the new keeper of God's flock would be found in Bethlehem - the same place where David, who was the best shepherd any of them ever knew about, had been born as well.
Here is one glimpse of how we come to a deeper faith in God. We bring the things we have seen in the outside world into the sanctuary. In here, the place of worship, our experiences can be interpreted by a God who loves all people and works in the lives of exotic star worshipers. If we follow God's direction, we will go in a different direction than bloodthirsty King Herod.
Even so, there is no assurance that knowledge of the scriptures alone is sufficient for the worship of God. As commentator Thomas G. Long writes,
One can, like the chief priests and scribes, know the biblical facts but completely miss the deeper biblical truth. One can memorize verses but forget the gospel. One can recite the kings of Israel and overlook the King of Creation. One can, like Herod, be in favor of studying the scripture and still be on the wrong side of God's will.3
What is going on in the story of the wise men? On the one hand, they arrive pondering the mysteries outside, discerning that God is up to something yet not certain where it might be happening. They need the scriptures to clarify and confirm their search. On the other hand, the chief priests and scribes have the ancient scrolls at their disposal, but they are removed from the experience of awe that the wise men can claim. As a result, King Herod misdirects the information which he learns from the scriptures and uses it to justify his terrorist schemes.
True worship brings together experience and scripture. Mature faith requires awe from the world out there and knowledge of the God whom we worship in here. Herod has access to the scripture, but he is unable to bend his knees in worship. So, he orders a massacre.
The wise men, however, have seen the wondrous star. As they come full of awe, their believing hearts are informed by a Word from beyond their own experience. When they discovered the child, "they knelt down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh."
Here is something to say when anyone who prefers to worship God on the ski slopes. Out there in nature, there is no doubt the heavens are telling the glory of God. "Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge," Psalm 19 declares.4 Yet if we listen only to nature, we cannot tell what kind of God has made the world and the skies above. From nature alone, we cannot know much about the God who made the mountain and covered it with snow. If we tumble down the ski slope and break our legs, we have no clue about the presence of the Creator. In the words of the psalmist, "There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard."5
So, what do we do? We come inside the sanctuary to worship God. God certainly made this wonderful creation and set the stars in the sky. In worship, we sing the hymns and tell the sacred story. And we learn about a God who loves us so much that he has given us Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.
A star cannot tell you that you are cherished by God. But the church can.