1-3-15 - Another Road

I wonder what became of these travelers who went to such trouble to find Jesus and worship him. Did they hear of his activities, his healings, teachings, miracles, and say, “Ah yes, I remember when he was just a baby….” Did they know about his crucifixion, and wonder at his being saved from death as an infant only to face it now? Did they hear about his Resurrection, even meet early missionaries?

As I was writing this, I received an email from Diane Jones, a Water Daily reader, with questions along the same lines - “Were they around when Jesus was growing up? Did they follow him throughout his youth? Did they tell their children about the King they brought gifts to? Could any one of the apostles be the son of any one of those wise men?” Diane closed her note observing how little we know about these magi, and yet… “over 2000 years later we still reflect on that Star and three men and their gifts and what it would lead to - for me it's from the Cradle to the Cross, from a baby to our Savior and what He offered for our salvation.”

The last we hear of the magi in the Gospel is that their route home diverged from their route there:
“And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.”

Another road. So often God invites us to take a road other than the one we came on, or other than we can imagine. We spend so much of our time planning our lives, mapping out how we’re going to get to where we think we need to be – from careers, relationships, children, status to what we're going to do next week. Yet one of the gifts of this story of the magi is that they didn’t plan their route going or coming. They were led by the star going, and instructed by the Spirit to go a different way home. They were ready, prepared, supplied – and flexible enough to trust that the road they’d come by wasn’t the only way home.

Have you sometimes found yourself directed to another road to where you thought you were supposed to be? Maybe there is one before you now, beckoning, unknown. Where might you be called to a change of route? Maybe even a different spiritual road?

These mysterious travelers had more gifts in their packs, some that have come to us over the centuries: Be on the lookout for the movements of God; plan your trip well, ready for the journey – and be ready to change your route at the Spirit’s prompting. The ultimate way Home for all of us will most definitely be by another road, one we cannot fully imagine; we can only live ready for it.