By another road

Reading, and re-reading, the Christmas story always brings new, fresh insight.

Today, preparing for Sunday's look at the wise men and Herod, I tripped over this line in Matthew's Gospel: "When it was time to leave, they (the wise men) returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod."

So much there in so little space.

First, the wise men stayed for a certain amount of time, then left for home. They weren't those relatives whom never seem to get the hint that it is time to go home.

Second, they were touched by God in their worship, so much so that they returned by another route. I think that when we actually come in contact with God, particularly during worship, the route (of life) we were travelling often changes. I know that from the moment, literally the moment, I came in contact with God (not for the first time, but for the one that counted), I began to travel a much different road than the one I had been on.

Finally, God warned them in a dream. How often I wished that God would come to me in a dream and warn me of all thing treacherous things that lie ahead of me. Then I think that the scriptures and his own small voice warn me all the time, yet I fall to the same temptations so often.

What do we have here? We have three or more men who came hundreds of miles to simply worship the little king. They worshipped. They left. They went home. There is no journal of their travels. There is no record of their coming or going. There isn't much of the tale here, no names, no agendas, no listing of home towns.

They came. They worshipped. They rode back into the back drop of history.

They, like the shepherds before them, were vital in some ways to this tale, yet we never learn their names, nor do we find out what seeing the baby meant to their lives.

They, like us after them, had their lives changed, but if they told the tale, we don't have that account.

What does it all mean? I think it means that God is with us, as the scriptures tell us. That God changes us, as the scriptures say. But it doesn't have to be a public telling of the tale. One person telling one other is quite enough.

We have thousands of Christian books published every year. Does that make us any close to Jesus? I'm afraid not. It's still about one person coming into contact with the King of Kings and telling one other about it. That's how churches are built. That's how faith works.

We come in contact with Jesus, then we take another road. That's the Gospel.