Moving Forward

Where are you on your journey – your spiritual journey – your journey to God.

Everyone who seeks God’s Face, embarks of a journey. The starting point is a commitment to Christ, a commitment to being an intentional disciple of Jesus. The ending point is God. And the journey is the spiritual life.

As in any journey you can move forward, you can stand still, or you can go backwards.

And, just so we’re clear, it doesn’t matter how ‘spiritual’ you are, how old you are, or how learned you are we are always on the journey. Billy Graham still has room to deepen his relationship with God. The Pope, as holy and good a man he is, still has work to do. We all do. I do, and so do you.

The question is, are we doing the work – are we on our way?

Last week you may have seen a picture of your priest on the front page of the region section of the Times-News standing on a labyrinth. And like many others, you may have asked yourself the question: what in the world is a labyrinth?!

A labyrinth is an ancient spiritual tool, which predates Christianity by millennia. In the middle-ages labyrinths were picked up by the Christian Church to take the place of huge pilgrimages. If you didn’t have the time or the means to get up and walk to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, you could maybe go down to your local cathedral and take a mini-pilgrimage into the labyrinth.

Labyrinths might look like a maze, but in reality they aren’t. There are no dead-ends or tricks. You begin the journey at the beginning, and you end the journey in the middle. If you just stay on the path it will lead you to the center everytime. You just have to stay on the path, and keep moving forwards.

As I’ve walked the labyrinth several times in the past few weeks I’ve personally found it to be remarkably similar to the journey of faith I try to be on. It meanders, sometimes it seems like I’ve ended up in a place I’ve already been before, sometimes it seems like I’ve ended up at the beginning, and sometimes it seems like I almost get there but then trail off again. But, I always come home. As long as I keep moving, and stay on the path.

Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, we remember another journey: the journey of the magi – the wise men – the “three kings” to Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus. They traveled from the East, probably Persia (modern day Iran), and sought to find God wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

These are probably some of the strangest figures in the Bible. Most scholars figure that the magi were Zoroastrians who practiced the weird magic we would call ‘astrology’ today. They looked to the skies to figure out what was going on in the world. And, as they were gazing up, they saw a star. Rising in the East, this star did something no other star does: it moved. Towards Bethlehem. And they picked up, and followed it.

Seems like they knew what they were doing too, because they followed this star with gifts: for a child. And, it seems like they knew who this child was: King and Messiah – for they brought gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. (Myrrh was used for burial in those days – would you think to bring embalming materials to a baby shower?!)

Also interesting, is that these pagan astrologers figured out who Jesus was and where he was before the people who you might expect to figure it out did. You might think that the Jewish teachers, priests, and leaders might figure out that their King and Messiah had been born. Nope, leave it to the astrologers.

But, the most important thing is that they went. They recognized what was going on, and then they set out. They turned away from their strange ways and turned their faces towards Christ. They chose the path, and they took it until they ended up at the side of Jesus.

So again I ask: where are you in your journey? Are you moving forward? Or have you stopped – or have you turned back – or have you jumped off the track?

It’s not a hard question to answer: if you’re intentionally deepening your relationship with God they you’re probably moving forward. If you can look back over the past month, year, decade and know that you’re deepened your faith then you’re probably moving forward.

If you’re not taking the time to intentionally seek God and a deeper knowledge of God, then you’re probably stopped. If you haven’t made a commitment to walk the path, then you haven’t even started.

Remember, don’t think that you have to feel ‘holy’ or ‘look’ particularly righteous. Those pagan, magician, astrologers figured it all out. They stopped what they were doing, turned to Jesus, and started taking steps towards him.

And we too can take that journey, wherever we are. Moving to the side of the manger/crib, and to the foot of the cross, and the entrance to the empty tomb. And, we can know all along, as we are on our journey seeking God, God our Creator and Hope is always the end, is always seeking us too, and God is always holding our hand every step we take.