Would we follow?

“We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Matthew 2:2

A single spot of light in the sky. The most learned men in the land grabbed their gear and headed out in the night to follow it. What must that star have looked like to compel grown men with jobs and responsibilities, intellectuals, wise men to journey? Can you imagine setting out to follow a star? Would we make pot of gold and leprechaun jokes if we met them on the road?

Or would we walk too? Not knowing where the star will stop or what we will find when it does.

They obviously didn’t expect what they found. Surely the mightiest of all kings must have been born to command his own star! Who else in all history has had such a celestial birth announcement? So they journey to the palace in Jerusalem where “a star shall come out of Jacob.” Numbers 24:17 If he’s worthy of a star, he must be worthy of a palace. Surely Judah wouldn’t miss its great king.

Never did they dream the star would stop over a poor carpenter’s house, for a child of questionable parentage. Nor could they imagine that this star was for the King of Kings, the God-man. Who could imagine such a thing? Who could envision a holy God setting aside his mantle of glory for swaddling clothes and a dirt floor? 

I wonder if the wise men knew as they laid their gifts before him how inadequate their treasures were?

Do we know how inadequate our treasures are?

I wonder if the wise men knew that this boy would rescue the world, make right God’s broken world?

Do we believe he’s made all things right?

I wonder at these wise men, who didn’t know the God of Israel, who weren’t God’s chosen people, these Gentile scholars willing to walk the world in search of the King worthy of his own star.

Are we willing to walk too?