Today is my last post for the year 2011. There have been 249 previous ones. In 2010 there were 255 posts. I'm not sure if that means my thoughts are getting fewer or (as I'd like to think) they're becoming more profound.
Speaking of being profound, Sunday's sermon is about what made the Magi wise. Have you ever given that profound thought a second of your day?
Here's what we know:
These men (well, we suppose they were men) showed up sometime after the baby Jesus was born (not the night of despite what our nativity scenes show) and brought with them three types of gifts. From the fact there was three types of gifts, we deduce there was three men. There is no evidence of that. Over time, we have decided they were from Persia and we've decided they were named Melchior, Baltazar and Gaspar. That's what we know or think we know.
How profound is that?
Are you as amazed as I that these three (perhaps) men (maybe) were given the message of the infant being born, the infant who would provide eternal life as King of the Jews, as the Messiah, when the message was missed entirely by all those Rabbis, teachers of the law, Pharisees and Sadducees?
Actually, when you think about the way God works (message to a teen-age unwed woman, message to a man in a dream, message to a bunch of shepherds), affecting the lowly and the humble, caring for the poor and those without, it makes more than perfect (if there is such a thing) sense.
God gave those men (maybe) the message that would affect us all. Why? Good question. Did the fact these men were given this message change anything about the world they lived in? No. They apparently told no one what they had seen. They simply worshipped. They brought gifts and they worshipped. They built no large cathedrals. They did nothing but deliver as if they were UPS and worshipped. They received no healing, no reproduction of lost limbs, no trip back from the dead, no teaching, nothing but a message that a baby was GOING to be born. They put on their sandals and packed up their camels and they went ... so they could worship. They took up to two years of travel, marching though they had every reason to quit, travelling though the return on the investment seemed minuscule at best, following a star that seemed to have little to do with GPS help, coming to a house that seemed little to do with a massive, glowing, gold-filled church or synagogue.
And they worshipped.
As we close out 2011, with its numerous terrible weather acts of tsunamis and tornadoes and earthquakes and deaths uncountable, we should all remember the WISE men for one thing: They were smart enough to worship. Nothing else. They were rich enough to afford camels, rich enough to get a face-to-face meeting with King Herod, rich enough to take up to two years out of their lives and it not hurt them financially. Yet when they found the child who would be called Christ, what they did was worship.
Let's start 2012 with that notion. Let's worship this child. Let's not look for blessings or good acts of kindness or excellent teaching that will turn our lives once and for all.
Let's simply worship. Spend a moment (or many) in prayer, in praise, in glorifying, in magnifying the name of Jehovah, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit. Let's stop a headlong plunge into precariousness and let's worship...honor...love...show PROFOUND devotion.
Maybe I am getting more profound and didn't even know it.
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