THE GENEROSITY OF JOURNEY

Jason Miller

I don’t know about you, but for me, the day after Thanksgiving is in itself a holiday. 

The transformation of home precedes a transformation of self at Christmas. The aesthetic in me loves the pageantry, the parade of color and texture, throughout city shops and households – especially in 2020 when I’m home each evening to walk through the neighborhood lights as my glowing one year-old takes it in. My empathetic side is attuned to the general rise of joy and compassion throughout the community. My pastoral heart relishes the internal quiet, a unique sense of pervading stillness to the soul like an inner snow flurry, as God becomes human babe and ultimately Savior, restoring chaos to order once again. These movements culminate in the activity of gift giving and receiving, an outward expression of the thankfulness we feel for those God has blessed us to live life alongside throughout the year.  

One such gift my wife and I received in our first year of marriage was a beautiful nativity set from my parents that served then, as it does now, as a visual representation of our commitment to live together as Christ followers, loving and serving the resurrected King who came to earth as helpless babe. Each year we pull out the different characters: the baby Jesus with arms extended as if to be held (ignoring that infants do not start having the capacity to reach out like this for another 5 weeks or so), Mary and Joseph bookending the wooden manger with serene smiles (blissfully bypassing the state of physical fatigue from loss of blood and exertion that Mary would have been experiencing, along with the deep inner turmoil for Joseph as he ponders getting his family back home), the Shepherds in their perfect robes (with no sweat or other animal fluid stains from the daily toil in the fields), but I digress … the porcelain animals, the angels, and of course the Wise-men.

These Magi always call me to extra reflection. We know that these eastern foreigners, the learned scholarly men of their time, left home on a trek they probably did not know how long it would take, acting in belief upon the knowledge they had gained in reading the stars. If you are like me, you are tempted to put them on the other side of the room, or even outside, acknowledging the up to two years or so it will take them to traverse the desert and arrive on Herod’s doorstep asking about the birth of the King of the Jews. Two-ish years there, and another two-ish years back. Four years of their life -- to bring gifts to a small child! Ponder this; it is worth the reflection. They are not seeking a wise king who can answer their deep questions, they are not coming to an adult king who can reward their faithfulness, they are not popping over on an overnight trip. They are not making this trek for any reward to themselves. God has put on a celestial display that has stirred their souls and they have chosen to respond, to give up nearly half a decade bringing forth the precious gifts of themselves, as well as gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

We return to the Nativity set:  Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus, the shepherds, the animals, the angels, and the Wise-men. Each year when I am finished setting it up I am struck by this recognition--someone is missing, someone(s) who should have been primary figures at the birth of the Savior of Israel. 

Looking back at the Matthew 2 text, when the Wise-men arrive, Matthew tells us in verse 3 that Herod, and all Jerusalem with him, is caught off guard, “troubled.” He did what was appropriate for a non-Jewish king ruling a Jewish people -- he turned to the learned scholars, the religious leaders of Israel, to ask for their perspective in making sense of this disturbing proclamation. Herod was thorough as he asked “all the chief priests and scribes” (vs 4), all the various factions and groups within Jewish leadership, including both Pharisees and Sadducees. As the leaders of Israel, they did not disappoint, identifying Bethlehem as the probable birthplace. 

At this point the narrative picks up on three sets of action, all of which flow from knowledge, but only two of which would seem to flow from belief into giving of oneself fully.

First, those Wise-men, the foreigners from the East, hearing the scribes and priests, give of themselves and continue their journey forward to Bethlehem to worship. Meanwhile, Herod, the Edomite, the foreign king, also acts on what he has heard from these leaders; he gives of himself in fear and protection of his position, sends his soldiers behind the Magi to destroy all living males two years and younger. The learned men of the East go forward, and the learned foreign ruler of Jerusalem also goes forward.

Then we come to an unexpected plot twist--the learned scholars of Israel, the priests, the leaders of God’s people, when called to give of themselves, to act on their knowledge in belief and go meet their Savior and King, go …  home. 

These men -- tasked with keeping the community in social order, spiritual purity, and preparing their hearts for the day the Messiah comes -- are unwilling, for whatever reasons, to give even a day’s journey, when the foreign men of the East have given years. They simply go home.  The two sets of foreigners have acted on their knowledge and given of themselves, one in worship and the other in destruction. The Jewish Priests have not. They have missed the culmination of their work, they have missed the opportunity to give of themselves fully, to celebrate in joy. They have missed their King. Sadly, they will continue to miss Him. Instead, it is the traveling foreigners, not the local leaders, that serve today throughout a myriad of households as examples that God gives knowledge for the purpose of living worshipful generous lives.

This Christmas season, as my wife and I and our one-year-old daughter pulled out our nativity, I was again struck by the incongruence of these missing leaders of Israel. As children, as parents, as learners, scholars and leaders, let us consider in what ways we may be confusing knowledge with belief. Knowledge by itself can be stagnant. Belief is knowledge internalized. Belief leads to generous activity.  Thus, we are invited to act, to believe such that we too come and worship at the birth that would turn death into life. Gently, may I implore you to consider where and how God is calling you to live in worshipful response to Him through faithful grace and generosity to the world around us? 

I invite you to wonder. Wonder at the invitation to the nativity. Wonder (honestly) if there is anything getting in the way of being like those who were present? Wonder what ways or places God might be calling you to act upon your knowledge and give of yourself fully? Wonder what life might look like, how you might act differently, if you believed that your value, your worth, the meaning in your daily work, is established not by your effort but by a God who became flesh and dwelt among us. I invite you to consider what knowledge has yet to mature into belief, and then act upon it. 

Accept the invitation to come and worship at the nativity. May we be like the Wise-men who, with a little knowledge, believed, trusting their future to Someone greater than themselves.  They gave of themselves for years, and ultimately found themselves kneeling before the giver of life.