A long road to hope

We will go out of our way for hope.

The wise men or magi as we call them traveled a long way, even well out of their way, for hope.

Have you ever gone out of your way for hope?

Just in the past couple of weeks, I traveled all the way to Nashville for a doctor’s appointment for my dad and then turned around the next week and traveled all the way to Little Rock with my oldest daughter. All for hope. When we are desperate for hope, we look for the least little glimmer and will go out of our way for it.

I remember last year in April how we witnessed the Great North American eclipse. If you were to look at the path of totality, nearly every hotel and AirBNB in that line was booked. Some of you traveled over to see it. People from all over traveled well out of their way to see this cosmic event. To stare into the sky at something much larger than themselves, something rare.

We don’t know if it was a comet or superstar or some other rare astronomical event, but something about their own beliefs and practices led them to look up into the sky and read the stars. The wise men were looking for hope.

Who were these wise men anyway? While often depicted in nativities as the three kings in conjunction with the gifts they bring, Matthew’s gospel doesn’t tell us how many there are or truly where they come from. More likely, they weren’t kings at all but were “some combination of astrologers, philosophers, magicians, religious advisors, courtiers, intellectuals of prestige and wealth, but not kings and not three.”

They didn’t know Jesus’s name or where he was born, but they read the stars and saw it as a sign of hope. Like the total eclipse last year and your own star words, the hope in the sky drew them slowly towards the manger.

But the journey towards hope can be a long one, and hope often doesn’t follow the rules and show up where we would expect.

The magi were looking for hope, but it wasn’t where they expected it to be. They began looking for this miraculous birth where you would expect a royal birth to occur: in a royal city. As Rev. Jonathan Evens says, “Visitors from the East came looking for Jesus in a palace but found him in a manger....They went to a palace, to the seat of wealth and power but he was not to be found there. Instead he was found in obscurity, in the home of working people, in a place from which no good was known to come.”

Malcolm Guite shares in his sonnet, “They did not know his name but still they sought him,

They came from otherwhere but still they found;

In temples they found those who sold and bought him,

But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.

Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice

To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.”

What did your journey to Bethlehem look like this past year?

I’ve seen several of you sharing your top 9 photos of the year or your core memories. In looking back over this past year, where has hope revealed itself where you least expected it?

To be honest, I laughed to myself when I drew my word last year. Out of all the words I wrote on stars, my word was worship. Worship? Really? I lead worship every week. Can I put this word back and get a new one?

I pinned my word to the bulletin board beside my desk and so there it was each week. Worship. Worship. Worship.

When we listen to the text this morning, we see worship referenced three different times, often phrased as “pay him homage.” This kind of worship is face-down worship. It is all-in surrender.When we encounter real hope, we risk everything on it.

After the magi have gone out of their way for hope and finally see hope face-to-face, they don’t rush over with their gifts first.

And what did they do once they found this hope of hope, this presence of a savior? They fall down and worship. Sometimes we see paid him homage. This is the word for face-down on the floor kind of worship. All-in surrender kind of worship. They offered themselves and their treasures before a different kind of king with a different kind of hope who was ushering in a different kind of kingdom. They worship before. They worship first. Don’t miss out on the significance here. Travis Troeger says “paying homage to Christ gives the story its purpose, its direction, and its culmination.”

Every week there was the simple gold foil star whispering and guiding me with the word “worship.” As in, don’t get so caught up in ordering worship that you forget to order your life around worship. Don’t offer up your gifts without falling before the Holy One, giver of all good gifts, first. And so this word guided me, reminding me to not get things out of order in my pursuit of order but to center myself around Christ. In every nativity, Christ remains at the center.

For those of you who kept your star word last year, I wonder how it might have surprised you and shown up in ways you didn’t anticipate. Did you grow? Did you embrace? Did you find peace? Did you experience a blessing or have empathy? Did music soothe you? Did you find wisdom? Did you have courage or find compassion?

For all of us who now hold a new word for 2025, I wonder how this word in front of you might guide you to places, people, and experiences you don’t expect or know.

And so whatever your word might be for this next year, I invite you to keep it somewhere where it can shine, where you can remember it. Use it to guide your prayers and invite God to work through this word to show up where you least expect it. And over the course of this new year, may it continue to gently guide you to hope, to the manger, right where you belong.