Born-again Christians are fond of saying that Jesus Christ is alive, and so he can be followed in a personal way. The Christian life is not just stepping through a list of religious observances. But how do we actually follow an invisible leader? The Bible teaches that Christ physically ascended into heaven in the sight of his disciples in the first century, promising to come back for them in person. In the mean time, he leads his followers from heaven. How does that actually work on a daily basis?
A familiar story from Matthew's gospel tells the story of some fellows who attempted to follow the Lord with even less information than we have today: "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.' When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They said to him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the prophet: 'AND YOU, BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH, ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE LEADERS OF JUDAH; FOR OUT OF YOU SHALL COME FORTH A RULER WHO WILL SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL'.' Then Herod secretly called the magi and determined from them the exact time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, 'Go and search carefully for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship Him.' After hearing the king, they went their way; and the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the magi left for their own country by another way" (Matthew 2:1-12).
THE PROBLEM OF FOLLOWING A STAR
Have you tried to follow a star lately? Imagine being one of these magi, attempting to pinpoint a specific location on the surface of the earth with the naked eye! The magi were either Medo-Persians or Babylonians, and either way they were part of a caste of scholars who specialized in astronomy, astrology, and the natural sciences. So they were very likely to have had some kind of star charts, and maybe a primitive astrolabe, which is a model of the heavens which can be turned to represent the position of the heavenly bodies at different times of year.
In the human, their desire to follow this amazing star was nearly hopeless. They could probably get to the correct country, but no more specific location than that. In our day of global positioning systems which can even be worn on the wrist, it is hard for us to appreciate that until the eighteenth century it was impossible to determine one's exact longitude on the earth. Latitude (north and south position) is relatively easy since the lines are evenly spaced on the globe, but longitude (east and west position) requires a calculation using universal time, and the world did not have a good enough clock for that until a man named Harrison built one in the 1700's. So travelers on land were always going astray, and ships at sea were constantly running aground or showing up at the wrong port until the problem of longitude was solved.
The magi were men of wisdom and great knowledge for their day, but their problem of following the star was very much like the believer's challenge in following Christ. We look up to heaven to seek the guidance of our God to figure out where to go and what to do down here on terra firma. The process is almost always more vague than we would wish, and sometimes we are completely perplexed about the Lord's guidance. The magi are a great picture of this problem. Even if the star literally got in front of them and walked them through Israel, it would still have been too far up in the sky to determine the exact location of the Christ child. The story of how they actually did it is tremendously helpful for us as we seek to follow Christ in heaven from down here on earth. They succeeded, and we can, too.
JESUS IS THE STAR BY WHICH WE NAVIGATE
Before we get too much further into this study I need to explain why the idea of the wise men following the star reminded me of a believer following Christ. In Revelation 22:16b Christ claims that he is the One True God and describes himself in this very way: "...I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." This is such a beautiful picture of our Lord in his royal splendor being the star by which we navigate through our lives. He uses the special emphatic grammar of the Greek to say "I am" which would have seemed like blasphemy to the Hebrew ear because it is such a clear name for the self-existent God. Then he asserts, literally, "I am the star, the brilliant, the morning one."
Many of us immediately think of the passage where Satan is described as the "star of the morning" in Isaiah 14:12: "How you have fallen from heaven, /O star of the morning, son of the dawn! /You have been cut down to the earth, /You who have weakened the nations!" It is important that we always follow such figurative associations in the correct direction. Satan was called Lucifer before his rebellion against God. He was the highest created angel, and his name meant "light-bearer" in general, and was a term specifically applied to the planet Venus. He partook, in a limited fashion, of the splendor of holiness in the presence of God until his fall. He possesses such splendor no longer. He only had it because it was derived from God and then he lost it. By contrast, Christ has such splendor by his very nature. It originates with him.
A less well-known reference to Christ as a star is the prophecy of Balaam. He had been hired by Balak, king of Moab, to prophecy against Israel, but found under God's influence that he could only pronounce blessings. In Numbers 24:17a Balaam says: "I see him, but not now; /I behold him, but not near; /A star shall come forth from Jacob, /A scepter shall rise from Israel..." This is a reference to the brightness and kingly power of Messiah. This shining is the shekinah glory, the radiance of his holy attributes. It is no mere figure of speech--he actually shines. And it is his person, teaching, and character which guides us as if by a star through a dark and ruined planet where we live among damaged people, looking for the hope of salvation.
How important is it to follow his star and no other? Just a few verses down the page from the place where Jesus calls himself the Bright Morning Star he tells us that our blessing in this life and our eternal destiny depends upon our knowledge of his precise instructions: "I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book" (Revelation 22:18-19). We will have much more to say about this later. For now, it is enough to know that he is our guiding star, the brilliant one, the only one.
STARTING WITH FAITH
Of course, knowing about Christ is not the same thing as following him. Faith is necessary to start the process of following him, and it is not faith until it allows us to overcome our uncertainties. I used to be bothered by the magi and how little they must have known about the Christ child when they set out on their journey, but now I am humbled by them. "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him'" (Matthew 2:1-2). We will examine the extent of their knowledge in the next section. The key point for this section is that their limited knowledge became the basis of a great act of faith as they packed up their animals with their travel bags and set out for Jerusalem to find this promised Deliverer.
Those who do not yet know Christ today have many reasons for uncertainty. In the West they have the spectacle of confused Christians. They see hypocritical Christians who live badly in spite of having good teaching. They see people doing good things who call themselves Christians but deny the cardinal doctrines of the historic Christian faith. They hear a multitude of competing voices about who Christ is and how he should be followed.
Those who have been in Christ for a long time also have causes for uncertainty to overcome. Unanswered prayers seem to argue with our faith, demanding: "If God is real, then why has he not intervened on your behalf after all these years of prayer?" If you follow Christ a long time you develop an incredibly long list of the failures of other Christians who should know better and act better than they do. You also have a long list of your own failures. There is a relentless fight to keep on believing as the years tick by, to continue embracing the risk of faith. Millions of people who once attended church in the West are now walking away from their churches, never to be seen again. They may be proving that they are, in the end, lost people, but for those who have not given up there is a constant battle to believe.
Make your own list of reasons for uncertainty about following God and Christ. In the end, it all comes down to whether you are willing to trust him based upon what you do know. The magi, who had little to go on, got up, packed their animals, and headed out across hundreds of miles of desert to a land not their own to worship the Christ child. Every one of us must set out on our own journey, and it does not even begin until we exercise faith in what we know of God and act upon it. What act of faith is stalled out in your own life, waiting for you to trust God and move forward?
STARTING WITH GENERAL AND SPECIAL REVELATION
We must not think that the magi began their trek without revelation and in total darkness about God and Christ. Depending on which country they were actually from, magi seemed to be monotheists even as they served in polytheistic societies. They had glimmers of truth from what we call general revelation, meaning things we can learn about God without the Bible, since they worshiped one god in a society which worshiped many gods.
But there would have been no trip to Israel to find the Deliverer if they did not possess some measure of special revelation. If the magi were Medo-Persians, there is thin but reliable evidence to believe that Israelites had lived among them and influenced their knowledge of spiritual things. Kings commonly were the motive behind the few libraries of the ancient world, and would have collected copies of the Hebrew Bible which the magi may have studied. This is even more likely if the magi were Babylonians. Daniel himself influenced Nebuchadnezzar very powerfully. Furthermore, the entire nation of Israel had been taken into captivity in Babylonia. It is important to remember that when Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt many Jews were either unwilling or unable to return to the land of promise. So there would have been a strong Jewish influence in most of the countries to the east where the magi came from.
We have already seen the passage in Numbers 24 where the Messiah would rise like a star. The magi may have taken that passage literally. But the idea of a Deliverer, which they may not have totally understood, was a compelling thought for them. The Bible does not tell us how they made a connection between the star and the expected Deliverer. By the way, let us also say that the Bible does not tell us that they were kings, that there were three of them, or that they were named Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar. The Bible does say that they did not arrive the same night as the shepherds to worship the baby Jesus in the manger. They came later, perhaps months, but they look real nice in Christmas displays, so we put them in.
But the Jews knew all about the location of Messiah's birth, as they revealed to Herod when questioned: "When Herod the king heard [that the king of the Jews had been born], he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the prophet: 'AND YOU, BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH, ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE LEADERS OF JUDAH; FOR OUT OF YOU SHALL COME FORTH A RULER WHO WILL SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL'"" (Matthew 2:3-6). Jews living in Medo-Persia or Babylon would have known this as well. I surmise that when the magi neared their goal they would have been able to ask: "Where is the baby whom the shepherds worshiped as Lord and Messiah?" The miraculous star was a great confirmation as general revelation, but when push comes to shove, finding Jesus Christ requires special revelation, the word of God.
Before I received the Lord at age seventeen I knew some things by general revelation. I knew that every person I had ever met was damaged and needed help from outside themselves. People who deny this are living a delusion, which may be the only thing you can do if you refuse to admit that you are spiritually needy. The Bible says that everyone can see that there is a Creator simply by observing creation. And the philosophically-minded among us can reason our way from the existence of moral absolutes to the necessary existence of a Law-Giver.
I had special revelation as well since I had been raised in church. I did not learn many Scriptures then, but later I accidentally learned a compelling verse repeated in a Loggins and Messina song: "What does it avail a man to gain a fortune but lose his soul?" (Mark 8:36 para.). That thought stuck in my head and heart and helped lead me to Christ. So let us never say that no one learns anything about God from general revelation, or that small snippets of Scripture are not powerful guides for lost people. This is how the magi located Christ, by acting on what they knew from general revelation and special revelation.
STARTING BY EMBRACING THE COST OF SEEKING
I am personally humbled by what it cost the magi to seek the Deliverer with such little information. They had to travel a great distance at great personal risk. It cost a lot of money to travel so far, plus they lost whatever gain they may have had in their normal jobs. They blew a lot of time since travel then was so slow. They endured the potential for ridicule from others of their profession, the way that proponents of intelligent design do today. Not the least cost was the risk of failure. They could not predict in advance how the Lord would bless their faith quest with the information they needed to find Messiah. I think that is why they "rejoiced exceedingly" when they saw the star (:10). What a relief! Have you had that experience in your journey of faith? You have set out to follow the Lord, and you have no clear idea about many aspects of the future. Then, as you embrace the personal cost of following Christ, you discover that he gives you the guidance you need just when you need it.
When we begin to see the magi as real men who risked a great deal and paid a great personal price to seek the Lord we can perceive that there is a stern challenge here to believers. What are we willing to do to follow Christ? What price are we willing to pay? There is nothing more pathetic than lackadaisical Christians who complain that their church has not sufficiently catered to their creature comforts and personal preferences. What would the magi say to the millions of people who have the entire gospel of Christ, the whole Bible, and thousands of devotional materials who do not study this precious revelation with great intensity?
I am powerfully challenged by these pagans who rose to a level of faith which sent them on such a costly, dangerous quest, with very little information. And how wonderful that our Lord sent them a star in the heavens to point the way! We have a far, far better guide to following Christ, and that is the personal knowledge of the Lord by faith. We have the explicit teaching of redemption which they did not have, that the punishment for every sin would be laid on him so that we might be forgiven, as Isaiah prophesied: "Surely our griefs He Himself bore, /And our sorrows He carried; /Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, /Smitten of God, and afflicted. /But He was pierced through for our transgressions, /He was crushed for our iniquities; /The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, /And by His scourging we are healed. /All of us like sheep have gone astray, /Each of us has turned to his own way; /But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all /To fall on Him" Isaiah 53:4-6). This is the revelation of God to us. Did the magi know these verses? Maybe. But let these precious truths be the foundation for our own journey of faith to the destination of salvation in Christ, leaping every barrier to follow him.