How Far Would You Go?

"How Far Would You Go?
Matthew 2:1-2

A lot of people traveled over the Christmas holidays?  Let’s see who traveled the farthest?  Who all traveled out of state?  Where?  What/who did you go to see?

I traveled, but not too far.  Just up to Kansas City.  My daughter Kristin, and her husband, Nic, flew in from San Diego.  So I got to see all my children.  Plus a new member of the family, Serenity, Nic and Kristin’s new puppy—a dachshund, corgi mix.  Kind of a weird name for a dog.  Ryan and I kept trying to come up with a more appropriate name.  None of the names we came up with were acceptable to Kristin, which wasn’t a surprise, considering what our suggestions were.

But I wasn’t NOT going to see my kids.  I wasn’t going to just hole up in my little home for my last week of vacation in the year, and miss the opportunity to see my children.  I could have said, “It’s too far to drive.”  A mere 250 miles or so.  I would have missed so much.  I could have said, “I’m only going to get to see Kristin and Nic for a couple of days, so what’s the use.”  But any amount of time being with my kids is a total lift to my spirits, and that’s what I looked forward to the most—that’s why I went.  To get myself out of the doldrums I had drooped into.  I needed them, so I went.


We have different motivations for our traveling.  That’s why I wonder about the Wise Men.  They were most likely from Mede or Persia to the east of Israel.  They would have traveled over 900 miles to get to Israel.  They, of course, didn’t have cars or trains or planes back then.  Were they on foot?  Did they ride camels?  We don’t know.

Why did they travel such a distance?  The story says they saw a star.  The star was on the rise in the east when they saw it.  So, understand, the Wise Men were from the East, and they saw the star in the East.  Then they traveled in the opposite direction from where they saw the star—heading West.

So why did they pick up and go?  The star was a sign.  A sign they took to mean that a new King was born.  How could they tell that from a star?  They may have been motivated by little more than a hunch, an intuition, a reading from some ancient text they didn’t fully comprehend.

But the point is, they went.  They didn’t have to.  They could have stayed back in Mede and done all the important stuff Wise Men do.  Maybe some priestly duties.  Teaching, instructing and advising the king.  Sitting around Starbucks talking philosophy, medicine and science over a latte.  Interpreting people’s dreams.  Lots of important stuff they could have decided needed their attention, rather than playing a hunch on a rising star.  But they did.  They went.

How far would you go?  One of the Christmas hymns we sing:
O come, all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant,
O come, ye, O come ye to Bethlehem!
Come and behold Him,
born the King of angles.
O come…O come…O come…

The invitation is out:  Come!  The question, then, is what’s the distance you’ll have to travel to heed and accept the hymn’s invitation.  And what does that distance represent for you and for your life?

Some people seem quite content to look on from a distance.  They think they can see or understand what’s happening from a distance, while not getting themselves personally involved.  I had a family in my church up in Colby.  There were 7 kids in this family.  All of them were heavily involved in sports or some school activity like band or choir.  The father of the family bragged to me one day that he had not attended any of his kids school activities.  He was rather proud of himself for this act of looking on his kids lives from a distance, even though they were in the same home.  I just shook my head, wondering how he could not motivate himself to be part of his kids story.

I’ve seen the same with grandparents and grandchildren.  Some grandparents watch their grandchildren grow up by looking at pictures posted on Facebook.  Others get down on the floor with the kids and wrestle or build things with legos.  The more you’re involved, the more the investment, the greater the personal knowledge.

That’s what the distance you have to travel represents, in your relationship with Christ, and the invitation to “come.”  Personal involvement vs. just looking on from a distance.  How much do you really want to get personally involved with the Lord?

Around Christmas time, a college professor was lecturing the class about the absurdities of the Christmas story.  Point after point was thrust home with the precision of a circus knife thrower at this class of college students.  After the professor laid out his crowning argument on the class, he asked if there were any questions or comments.

One young man stood up, walked to the front of the class, pulled an orange out of his coat pocket and slowly pealed it.  Taking one of the sections of the orange and eating it, he turned to the professor and asked, “Was the piece I just ate sour or sweet?”
“How do I know,” thundered the professor.  “I didn’t taste it.”
“Exactly,” retorted the young man.  “And how can you be so sure that what you say about the Christmas story is true, until and unless you have ‘tasted’ it?”

Tasting is the “distance” that professor was being called to travel.  Psalm 34 says, “O, taste, and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusts in Him”  (Psalm 34:8)

Tasting means taking a risk.  Ryan and Amanda made this one meal this past week that was a hash made out of roasted veggies, some of which I’m not totally fond of.  Like brussels sprouts.  But there was bacon in this hash recipe, which redeemed it.  I was a bit wary, taking a bite, putting some of it in my mouth, tasting it.  But it was darn good.  I’m glad I took the (small) risk of tasting their new recipe.  Tasting is a risk.

Tasting also means not reading a report of someone else who has done what you are unwilling to do.  You can google anything on the interweb, and read what someone else thinks.  You can read reviews of all sorts of things by people who have taken the time to report about their experience with some product or movie or food.  But reading a review is not tasting.  You can read a review about what someone else has experienced with Christ, but at some point you have to realize that you have to be willing to taste for yourself.

Which gets us to the third quality of tasting:  Tasting means getting personally involved.  As with my experience with Ryan and Amanda’s hash recipe, I had to put some of that food in MY mouth.  I have to have a personal experience with that which I’m talking about.

Imagine if I said, “I’ve been a pastor and preacher for 35 years.  I’ve tried to help people get acquainted with God and with the scriptures.  But I have never really given myself over to Christ.  I don’t think I need to do that, as long as I’m getting you personally involved.”  You’d be aghast if I said something like that!

Like my father who would drive us to church, drop us off in front, and then drive home to watch sports on TV.  I think he thought he was doing something important, while never getting personally involved—never going in the church himself and opening himself up to experiencing Christ.

Some may say, “I’m not that kind of person who gets personally involved much.  I like being able to keep my distance.  That’s just my temperament.”  If that sounds like you, then maybe that’s the distance you have to travel to really see and experience Christ.  A personality adjustment.  A change of temperament.  The Christmas carol says, “Come!” not, stand back aloof and untouched.  The star of the Wise Men said, “Come!” not hang around your own comfortable country, unwilling to venture out.

And as the Christmas carol states, once you get there, once you “Come…” your activity is not over.  It’s not just coming, it’s tasting.  “Come and BEHOLD Him!”  “O come let us ADORE him.”

What kind of investment of yourself will it take to cover the distance?  What level of involvement?  In his book, When I Relax I Feel Guilty, author Tim Hansel quotes this little ditty:
I would like to buy $3 worth of God please.  Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine…I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.  I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.  I would like to buy $3 worth of God please.

  In determining how big of a distance you might need to travel in order to meet up with the Lord, you will have to decide that you want more than just $3 worth of God, that you want more than just a little of this and a little of that in your relationship with the Lord, but that you desire much more.

The Christmas hymn I have been highlighting is, “O Come, All Ye FAITHFUL.  Covering the distance for a relationship with the Lord, will also challenge you to determine what it means to be “faithful.”  Are you being faithful if you hear the “come” but then don’t come?  There is an investment you will be making just in starting out on this journey of faith.  And there is a much higher level of involvement than what you may have been willing to give before.

What’s important is that there is movement.  Movement means involvement.  In AA they talk not about perfection but progress.  When you are called into this journey of faith to walk with the Lord, when we are drawn in by God, when we move in God’s direction in a dedicated way, we are demonstrating the investment of ourselves to go out and meet God—to make progress with God.

The South African Missionary Society once wrote to the famous missionary, David Livingstone.  In that letter they wrote:  “Have you found a good road to where you are?  We want to know how to send men to join you.”
Livingstone wrote back, “If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them.  I want men who will come even if there is no road.”

When you’re following a star, like the Wise Men, there is generally no road, but there is always a destination.  The question is, are you making progress towards that destination, no matter what?

There is a scene in the movie, “Chariots of Fire,” when the young missionary and Olympic athlete, Eric Liddell, is explaining to his sister why he must race.  He says, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.”

When you see the star in the sky, or hear the angel’s song, or whatever it might be, and you don’t come, you end up missing the most amazing things.  But mostly, you will feel the absence of being a part of God’s pleasure.  Because God’s pleasure is felt most by those who involve themselves fully in His story.