guided by god's light

Epiphany

            Question:  What would you say is the most basic human need?  Your list might include such items as food, water, and air to survive.  But there is one more basic human need that should not be omitted from the list:  spiritual hunger.  A study of the history of world religions allows us to see strange religious practices of primitive peoples.  While many of these religious practices have fallen away, they show a legitimate need.  These ancient people were searching for something.  In religions that have become extinct and in those that continue to this day, something is revealed about the nature of human beings.  We are searching for that which is the very foundation for our life, what we might call “ultimate reality.”  Human beings, from of old until this day, have been searching for that which concerns us ultimately.

            Look in our gospel lesson for today.  See such a journey.  Behold the wise men on their spiritual journey.  They know little or nothing about the faith of Israel.  What they may know of God is what many modern and ancient faiths declare:  God is the Creator of all that is.  These men, like all people, are searching for what is ultimate in human life and in the universe.  They are foreigners, Gentiles.  They don’t know the Hebrew Scriptures, including texts that point to the coming anointed one, a king, the Messiah.  As you watch them on their journey, you see that they are not following a religious system.  No.  To you it seems more like these men are operating out of a willingness to be led.  They follow what light from God they have.  It is a star, a most unusual star, as the story goes.  It doesn’t behave the way all other observable stars behave.  As the earth rotates, the sky above appears to move.  Stars rise in the east and set in the west.  Not this star.  The wise men have come from the East and are following this star.  And this star is able to stop and point out a particular address, like a billboard with an arrow pointing down to Ralph’s Restaurant.  These men don’t know the Hebrew Scriptures, but they are willing to follow what light God has offered them.  This is their spiritual journey.

            Well, we have one of our own.  We have our own hunger for what is ultimate.  We know what it is to search for that which assures us that life is meaningful, and that our own life has a purpose to it.  We hunger for a relationship with the reality that is the foundation of all that is, ultimate reality.  We long for God, for the living God, as the psalmist cries:  “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”  The psalm speaks of his “thirst for God,” what I call the universal human hunger for God, that which concerns us ultimately, the very ground of our existence.  This hunger is well known to you.  Remember your search for God.  Remember how it began while you were a young person coming of age.  What you learned in Sunday school or perhaps confirmation class was now material to be questioned.  You wondered if it were true.  You wanted some kind of verification for what you believed.  That’s when you sought some answers.  That’s when you gave a lot of thought to the question of God.  Your reading of the Bible and other material and your listening to preachers and teachers became more intense then.  It was as if you were turning up the volume on radio programs that were always there, but to which you had not paid much attention.  That was when you were going through a “dark night of the soul.”  It may not have been the only time, for dark nights seem to haunt the faithful periodically.  Then you doubted everything you believed.  And yet—perhaps you didn’t notice it—your doubt was a very central component of your spiritual journey.  Like the wise men, you were searching in the dark.  But that darkness was the backdrop of God’s revealed light.  You followed that light.  Your faith deepened.  You committed or recommitted your life to Jesus Christ as your Lord.  And look!  Here you are, continuing your journey of faith, following God’s light.

            One thing we can count on:  There will be Herods who will come to block our path.  As the wise men in Matthew pursued the star toward God’s self-revelation in Christ, King Herod attempted use them to destroy the child Jesus.  Had he been successful, the goal of the wise men’s spiritual journey would have been out of their reach.  As we follow God’s light toward the goal of reaching God, we will be met with opposition to the goal of our journey.  On our way, we can count on meeting a powerful Herod, one who can control the direction of history and our life.  A long time ago, a certain Herod told his kingdom in the United States that the races should be separated.  This Herod declared that some of his subjects must ride in the back of the bus, must drink from drinking fountains labeled especially for them, must not eat at lunch counters, and must learn from separate schools.  Some of those subjects when on their journey by another way.  A generation ago, another Herod commanded his people to go to war.  Some of his subjects believed that that war was not worthy to be fought, for it had no just purpose, in their eyes.  Some of those subjects went on their journey by another way.  Some time ago, another Herod in the business world told one of his subjects that he should practice deception, if necessary, to close a sale.  That subject wanted to remain on his spiritual journey toward what was ultimate in life.  He didn’t want to be dishonest.  That subject went on his journey by another way.  On our spiritual journey, we can expect to encounter Herods who intend to block our way toward our goal of reaching God.

            Of course, our journey becomes all the more difficult to pursue when the Herod is within.  The truth is, sometimes we are the ones who put roadblocks in the way of our journey toward God.  While we follow God’s light before us, something flashes on the side of the road.  You know how flashing lights have the power to make you look at them, so we do.  Off to the side of the path comes a distraction.  The distraction always comes with the assurance of the serpent in the garden in Genesis concerning the fruit God commanded the man and the woman not to eat:  “You will not die,” the serpent said, “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  In other words, “You can do what you want; no one will get hurt.”  The Herod within us agrees with that statement.  So we taste some forbidden fruit.  We seek power.  We seek wealth.  We seek the pleasures of the flesh.  We seek to numb ourselves with chemicals.  We seek to elevate ourselves by putting someone else down.  The Herod within us goes along with injustice in the world.  This internal Herod says, “We can’t do anything significant to stop world hunger.  We can’t stop wars around the world.  The way we abundantly consume really has no impact on the scarcity that people face somewhere else on the planet.”  On our spiritual journey, we allow ourselves to become subjects of this internal Herod.

            Still, God leads us on.  As by a bright star in the sky, God guides us by God’s light.  God shows us the place where we find his self-revelation in Christ.  It’s not so much that we have discovered God in Christ by our initiative.  The truth is, we don’t get there unless God leads us.  Our search is captured in the ninth century prayer:  “O thou who art the everlasting Essence of things beyond space and time and yet within them . . . Stretch forth thy hand to help us, who cannot without thee come to thee”  The prayer articulates the truth that we cannot come to God without God first coming to us.  Our finding God is always at God’s initiative.  For me, I find God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  When I want to understand the nature of God, I look at the cross.  There is where God has so powerfully moved toward me, seeking me out, revealing God’s nature to me as self-giving, suffering love.  That reaching out by God through Jesus Christ is God’s initiative.  Because God has come to us, we can respond by coming to God.  God’s grace has the power to dethrone the internal Herods.  Lloyd Ogilvie tells of a man who said, “When I finally got past my blasted pride at being a good Presbyterian, worthy citizen, and magnanimous father and saw all the distorted motives and manipulative devices by which I lived, I could experience grace for the first time.”  What that man was saying from his experience is that God’s grace deposes the internal Herods and allows us to experience new life.  This is God moving toward us in Christ.

            It is also something else.  God’s gracious movement toward us in Christ is also the inauguration of a new kingdom.  In the midst of kingdoms in this world headed by Herods, comes a new kingdom that has an entirely different orientation.  The kingdoms of the Herods are defined by the need for power, to control individuals and institutions, to punish those who inflict pain on the kingdom, and to gather unto the kingdom all one could desire for the good life of luxury.  Now here comes God in Christ establishing a new kingdom.  This kingdom cares for the poor and the meek of the earth.  The merciful are “blessed” in his kingdom.  Peacemakers are called “the children of God.”  Christ, the king of this kingdom, commands his subjects to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.  I don’t know about you, but that was not my attitude on 9/11.  I wanted revenge for what people had done to my country that day.  Every now and then, this internal Herod seeks revenge against Osama bin Ladin.  That he should be brought to justice is one thing, something that ought to happen.  My wanting revenge, including his death, is another matter; it is disobedience.  The king of this new kingdom says the oddest thing:  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  I have to make a choice, the kingdom of Herod or the kingdom of God.  That’s the choice we all have to make.