When you receive this email, I will be on another “mission journey” – just like the Magi.  This time to Nepal and India (I haven’t even reported to you yet on my pre-Christmas trip to Kenya and the Congo – but will soon).  My son, Joseph will be with me, plus our associate, Scott Hahn.  It will be my first time to be back in Nepal for over two years – and I am very excited!  I will be counting on your prayers while I am there.  And as you can see from the picture below, I will be completing another book on the long 15 hour flights back and forth.  So this is how I spend my “flying time” rather than watching movies.  This latest book will probably be entitled: The Stewardship of Your Living and Giving and is based around “20 Biblical Principles of Finances.”

From December 1st leading up to Christmas, we looked in depth at the various Christmas Narratives. In doing so, we related them to many other Scriptures since the Advent Story is a seamless spiritual continuum leading right up to this present time. And Epiphany is a vital part of the Christmas journey.  While most Christians in the West combine the celebration of the visit of the Magi on Christmas, most of the Eastern Church celebrates it on January 6th because the coming of the Magi definitely took place after the other Christmas events, possibly up to two years after the birth of Christ.  So we are going to look at as a special “New Year’s Study” as we have just crossed the threshold of 2009.

In the last couple of devotional studies before Christmas, we looked at the gift that God gave the world and how He uniquely “wrapped Christ” as His great gift of love to the world.  Now I want to change focus to the only other people in the Christmas Narrative who actually gave gifts to the Christ Child – the “Magi from the east.” Their visit to Bethlehem changed their lives forever.  I believe a study of their journey and giving will do the same for us if we learn several lessons from the “wise men.”

First, they were not discouraged by the pilgrimage:

Theirs was a long, arduous, costly trip—an intentional journey.  They were not just aimlessly wandering around, like so many people live their lives.  They were neither driven nor drifting—but divinely directed!  The Bible says they were motivated by a desire to find and “…worship Him” (Mt. 2:2).  They were not motivated by curiosity, selfishness, guilt or gain—but by the desire to find and worship Christ.” 

The same motivation must be true for us today.  Any lesser motivation other than worship will always ultimately lead to discouragement and disillusionment on our Christian pilgrimage.  There are far too many detours, difficulties, delays and defeats to be motivated by anything less than worship.  That’s why Paul said:  “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all to the glory of God” (I Cor. 10:31; Col. 3:17).

Chronic discouragement is one of the most widespread spiritual diseases among Christians today.  If you are struggling with lingering discouragement, check your motivation as a Christian.  Are you really living to “…worship Him?”

Secondly, they were not distracted by the palace:

Their spiritual pilgrimage providentially led them to Herod’s palace.  King Herod was both a shrewd politician and master builder.  So successful was this half-Jew, half-Idumaean in maintaining order in the perpetually troublesome Jewish province of Palestine, that the Roman Emperor, Marcus Antonius, honored him in 40 BC with the title “King of the Jews.” Herod’s acceptance of that title only further inflamed Jewish hatred.

History attributes to him the building of great palaces and fortresses, some of which are still standing in Israel today (The December, 2008 issue of National Geographic has a timely feature on this master builder of the Holy Land). He is perhaps most remembered by both Jews and Christians for building the Third Temple in Jerusalem, preceded by the ones built by Solomon and Zerubbabel.  Herod was powerful, prosperous and pretentious!  His palace was a marvel to behold!  How easy it would have been for the Magi to become distracted by the grandeur and opulence of his palace – and the attention it temporarily afforded them!

When our pilgrimage likewise sovereignly leads us temporarily to the “palace” of financial success and social position, how easy it is to become distracted and intoxicated by the splendor and trappings of power and prosperity!  How quick we are to rationalize and justify luxuries, excesses and extravagances.  How very easy it is for all of us to compromise, to become comfortable and complacent.  Could it be that this is one of the reasons that God “burst our financial bubble” as a nation and world in the last month of the year?  Perhaps we had become too preoccupied with building our own little palaces rather than His Kingdom.

So my friend, beware of the palaces in your pilgrimage! They can so easily distract us from His will and detour us from His glory.  All of us “adjust upwardly” far better than we “adjust downwardly.”  But so often the call of the Gospel is to do what Jesus did and “go down” to the lowest places in life with the love and compassion of God!  Jesus came “down to earth…down to humanity…down to servanthood…down to death…down to the grave (Phil. 2:6-10).  The palaces of life make it so hard to follow in His steps on this “downward journey” to the lowest, lonely and lost of life.

Thirdly, they were not defrauded by the priests:

The word “defraud” is a Biblical term, especially in the King James Version of the Bible.  But we don’t use it much today in our contemporary English.  In the Hebrew and Greek it variously means:  “To rob…to spoil…to deceive…to violate…to use.”  Jesus reminded the Rich Young Ruler of the Commandment which said:  “Do not defraud” (Mk. 10:19).  Likewise, Paul warned about false religious teachers of depraved minds who are deprived (have been “defrauded” or “robbed”) of the truth”.  He says that they suffer such spiritual darkness because they “…do not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (I Tim. 6:3-5).

How easy it would have been for the wise men to be defrauded by the priests who were consulted by King Herod concerning the prophesied birthplace of Christ. They were theologically trained and religiously active.  They knew by heart all of the prophecies concerning the Messiah.  They could recite them back to Herod in a heart-beat.  However, they were not even willing to follow the wise men the short distance to Bethlehem to see the promised Christ Child.  Apparently they had become infatuated with Herod’s palace they had been invited into.  Their spiritual complacency and lukewarm religiosity defrauded them of the joy of seeing the long-awaited Messiah.  Like the majority of their contemporaries on the Sanhedrin, they had become so committed to perpetuating their Jewish religious traditions that they could not afford to personally become involved in something that might turn their little religious world upside down.  It was fine to have a detached theological discussion on prophecy in answer to Herod’s questions—but that was all the further they dared to become involved.  They liked their little “religious palaces” too much to let them be turned up-side-down by some new Jewish king!

How tragic it is that so many of the religious professionals today who should be leading the search for Biblical truths, are the very ones who are so often suppressing it!  Just note on any documentary on the History Channel or National Geographic, how these “religious scholars” call into question every revelation of the Bible. There were a number of them during the month of December to call into question almost every aspect of the Christmas narrative.  And they do so in the name of objective “science,” “history” and “archaeology.”  But their biases are blatantly obvious.  Objective they are not! 

Sadly, many of the very preachers and priests who should be totally committed to the person of Christ are defrauding so many in their congregations from the truth through liberalism, humanism and sexual perversion!  So little has changed in the religious realm from the First to the Twenty-First Century.

The wise men however, were neither distracted by the dazzling opulence of Herod’s palace; nor were they defrauded by the dead orthodoxy of the priests!

Fourthly, they were not disappointed by the place:

As is so often the case, the guiding star from God led the wise men to a humble, lowly place.  It directed them from splendor to simplicity…from a place of prosperity to a place of poverty…from a high place to a humble place!

Their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh would have seemed so appropriate in the splendor of Herod’s palace – but so out of place in the simplicity of Joseph’s home!

How like the true God that is.  He is so extravagant in the most unexpected places.  He lavishes His love on the most unlikely of people.  And He so often calls us to give our best—just as He has done—in the most unlikely, unpromising places!  To those places of poverty and ignorance we do not mind giving our leftovers…our unneeded excess…our worn-out and “used”—but not our best!  We save our best for the “high and mighty,” not the “low and powerless.”  But remember, the motivation of the wise men was to “worship Him”.

Therefore, “…opening their treasures they presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh” (Mtt. 2:11).  Remember this great liberating principle:  When our gifts of time and money are first and foremost being presented to Him, the place is relatively unimportant!  Ministering to Him through others in need transforms the most humble circumstance into the heavenly!  That motivation lifts every gift, regardless of how great or small, to a place of eternal significance.  How the life of Mother Teresa demonstrated that truth in the slums of the world!

If you find yourself disappointed by the place you are living, working or ministering in, begin to look for His presence there.  As the Fifteenth Century Christian monk and mystic, Brother Lawrence found, you can “practice His presence” in any situation.  Even though he greatly disliked kitchen work, Brother Lawrence learned the discipline of practicing the presence of Christ there to the degree that he ultimately experienced the Lord no less in the kitchen than in the sanctuary!  He learned to commune to the same degree with the Lord in washing dishes or in celebrating the Mass.  That’s the testimony of a heart set on worship.

The presence of Christ lifts any act of love from the mundane to the miraculous!

Lastly, they were not disobedient to the plan:

After their pilgrimage had led them from the palace to the priests to the place of Christ’s birth, God appeared to them in a dream, and gave them a new plan.  That plan was to “…return home by a different route” (Mt. 2:12).  God literally gave them a “new direction!”  To take a new way home other than the now more familiar one they came by, was an added inconvenience.  It would no doubt take more time, energy and money.  However, in obedience to God, they went home “another way”—even though it inconvenienced them and enraged King Herod.

Without overly spiritualizing that phrase:  “…they returned home another way,” I want to emphasize an important truth.  When we have truly met Christ, we are invariably changed.  We always return to our homes and businesses differently than the way we were before we met Him.  When the direction and priorities of our lives are unchanged, we have not really met the Messiah.  Also, when we go home a “different way”—that difference always produces difficulties and divisions.  But we, like the wise men, must not be disobedient to the heavenly plan—whatever the cost.

CONCLUSIONS

I trust that these brief “Lessons from the Wise Men” will help guide you in your journey through this New Year.  And just as they gave their best to the Lord Jesus, I pray that you will do the same in 2009.  I know that from a human perspective the economy does not look very positive and promising right now.  But it was costly for the wise men to “…open their treasures and present Him with gifts of gold, incense and myrrh” – just as it will be costly for you to give your best to Christ in this New Year.  But I challenge you to begin the New Year with new “bold faith” in you living and giving!

Following the Wise Men,