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Chapter IX

Westward Ho!

Christmas is coming! The young people in the other room are grouped about the piano and it is pleasant to hear them singing: 

As with gladness men of old
Did the guiding star behold,
As with joy they hailed its light,
Leading onward, beaming bright;
So, most gracious Lord, may we
Evermore be led to Thee! 

Whenever we turn afresh to this lovely story-as, at Christmas-time, we invariably do — we are impressed afresh by the tremendous strategical importance of the record of the Wise Men. It represents the entry of the Gentiles into the luminous drama of the New Testament. As I turn the pages of my Old Testament, I am impressed by the fact that it takes small cognizance of nationality. Countries are scarcely mentioned. The world is sharply divided into two sections – Jews and Gentiles. The Jew, of whatever nationality, was inside the pale: the Gentile, of whatever race, was outside. Every man living, of whatever tribe or speech, fell under one or other of these two classifications. With this in mind, it is interesting to glance afresh at the two groups that occupy the foreground of the Christmas idyll. The shepherds who kept their flocks by night were Jews; the Wise Men who followed the star were Gentiles. Their caravans, so different in character, converge upon Bethlehem that all the world may see that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus. He is the cosmopolitan Saviour. 

Palestine was the one country to which anybody might come from anywhere without causing astonishment or suspicion. See how easily and naturally, at the outset of the Saviour’s pilgrimage, these Oriental astrologers mingle with the life of the land! See how, in the last days of that pilgrimage, the Greeks came from the West to see Him, their presence in Palestine seeming equally congruous and fitting! And see how Palestine provided Paul with a base from which he could operate, with equal facility, upon either Europe or Asia!

This story of the Wise Men of the East is placed on record to show that every sky has its star. A man may live in the most outlandish spot in the solar system. But if his heart is hungry, and his eyes wide open, he will discover some pin-prick of light in the dark vault of his heaven that, faithfully followed, will lead him to Jesus. These men kept their vigil in a place so remote, and so out of touch with the rest of the world, that Marco Polo, in spite of the most painstaking researches and inquiries, had the greatest possible difficulty in locating it. Yet, in response to their aching desire for something that, sensed by their spirits, their science failed to reveal, a star swam into their ken that led them to Bethlehem. 

Nor had they to seek some unfamiliar environment. They went, as was their wont, to their observatories, and, as they pursued their accustomed studies, the star appeared. It is wonderful how often God reveals Himself to men through their ordinary tasks and avocations. The shepherds watch their flocks by night, and, lo, the angels fill their sky! The fishermen cast their nets, and One moves towards them who bids them become fishers of men! A woman goes to a well to draw water, and, as she stands there with her waterpot, a Stranger offers her the water that will dispel all thirst for ever! 

So true is it that every sky has its star. A man has not to seek another land or another life in order to discover God. Let him stand just where he is, and scan his ordinary sky with eyes wide open, and, there, blazing brightly above him, he will discern the star that will lead him into the light everlasting. 

This story of the Wise Men of the East is placed on record to show that every vision has its price. For the stat insisted on going the wrong way! It went West! To an Eastern mind that was anathema. What good could come out of the West? An Eastern looked to the East as the source of all intellectual and spiritual illumination. 

To make matters worse, in leading them on a westward course, it directed them, of all places, to Palestine! Palestine was the home of everything that was conservative, everything that was antiquated, everything that was behind the times, It had no observatories, no academies, no universities, no anything! 

After crossing the sandy desert; after having found a way across the turgid and tumultuous waters of the Euphrates; after having forded the fast-rushing streams of the Tigris; after having followed the star among the oaks of Bashan and the cedars of Lebanon; after having seen for the first time the heights of Carmel and of Hermon; after having caught sight of the glories of Jerusalem and gazed upon the stately proportions of the Temple, they at length found themselves in the yard of an inn. The object of their search had been born in a manger! Yet they never faltered. The star led and they followed. They were prepared to pay any price for truth. They would allow nothing to intervene between themselves and the goal to which the star was leading. 

There lies the charm of the story. In loyal fidelity to the noblest traditions of scientific research, these men set out in search of truth, asking no questions as to the destination to which their passionate quest would lead them. With honest and open minds, they were ready to face any facts and to stride along any trail. If only some spark of illumination would somewhere appear, they were prepared to follow the gleam in scorn of consequence. No ancient beliefs or preconceived ideas should blur their vision or frustrate their search. In his Seventy Years of Archaeology, Sir Flinders Petrie tells of a man who was caught filing away at one of the stones in the interior of the Great Pyramid. Challenged as to his iconoclastic behaviour, he explained that, during years of patient study, he had formulated an elaborate theory as to the prophetic and historical significance of the Pyramids. The measurements of this one recalcitrant stone, however, were quite irreconcilable with the splendid scheme. He was therefore altering the Pyramid to make it square with the theory! It was in no such spirit that the Magi turned the faces of their camels westward. Whatever truth was; wherever truth was; they were prepared to part with all the gems that they had accumulated in order to purchase that one Pearl of Great Price. 

Theirs is the only reasonable attitude. If religion be worth while, it must command and must insist on my obedience. I do not want a little religion that I can hold in my hand like a toy or a tool; I do not want a religion that I can pick up when I please and put down when I feel in the humour to drop it; I do not want a religion that I can assume on Sunday and relegate to obscurity on Monday. I do not want a religion that makes me feel that I am the big thing whilst it is the small thing. I want a religion that is big enough to command me; big enough to lord it over me; big enough to defy my prejudices; big enough to insist on my going West when all my instincts and inclinations are urging me to go East! I want a religion that will say: This way and no other! This thing and no other! This faith and no other! Even though it command me to worship a babe in a manger at a wayside inn, I prefer a religion that is sovereign and majestic to a religion that is trivial and subservient. I want to be led to a Rock that is higher than I. Anything smaller will, sooner or later, become contemptible to me. 

This Story of the Wise Men of the East is placed on record to show that every fidelity has its reward. Those to whom the star appears may, from that hour, live lives that are divinely guided and controlled. Heaven has its beckoning and its frightening angels. The beckoning angels bade the Wise Men follow the star. The frightening angels bade them, later on, ignore the instructions of Herod and return to their own country another way. 

God has many messengers yet but one message. Whether He sends angels, as in the case of the shepherds, or stars, as in the case of the Wise Men, He is seeking, both by shining spirits and by celestial orbs, to lead the wayward hearts of men to the feet of His divine Son. It may be that, if only we had eyes to see and ears to hear, we should discover that every star that shines, and every bird that sings, and every flower that blooms is calling us to the worship and service of Jesus. 

I like to conjure up the scene that must have presented itself at Bethlehem on the arrival of these pilgrims. Does it sometimes happen that, when an heir is born to a great English estate, the nurse takes the baby across to the window and bids him look out? ‘It’s all yours!’ she tells him. ‘It’s all yours! The fields and the farms, the wood, and the lakes, the hills and the valleys, the sheep and the cattle-they are all yours! You’re the heir to them all!” So the infant Jesus looked into these furrowed Eastern faces, ‘I will give thee’, it had been written, ‘the heathen for thine inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’ And here they were; here was the inheritance submitting itself to the inspection of the Heir! ‘The Gentiles,’ it had been written, ‘the Gentiles shall come to Thy light and kings to the brightness of Thy rising!’ And here, surely enough, they were! The inheritance was greeting the Heir; the kings were bowing to the King of kings. It was a foretaste of the day when all science shall bow before His throne and when all kings shall cast their crowns before Him. 

-F.W. Boreham