When the Wise Become Fools

     Not too long ago, the wisemen came and took over my living room.  The wisemen had hijacked Noah’s ark and held baby Jesus hostage along with his mother Mary.  There was evil afoot.  Every so often, the animals on the ark would walk the plank, and only diabolical laughter could be heard as the ark sailed the living room rug. Jesus and Mary seemed doomed.  The wisemen had not gotten the memo – we are supposed to worship Jesus, not put him in the brig. 

     Even though my children had rewritten the story of Jesus’ birth, I consoled myself in remembering that God’s plan had not been taken out of His hand.  God has already accomplished all He desired without any detours.  No wisemen gone rouge could bother me. 

     There are no guarantees – all of life is a gamble- live today for tomorrow we die – live for yourself.  These ideas reveal what most of the world believes about life.  It sounds a lot like the wisemen taking over Noah’s boat and going for a joyride.  And even though I laughed at my sons’ revisionist history, I too want to take control of the ship and do my own thing.  I am afraid of not squeezing all that I can out of my life.  I want to be like the living room wisemen and write my own story.  I am ok with putting Jesus in handcuffs.

      But even if Jesus is all tied up below deck, He still affects our lives.   He really did live.  He really did die.  And there are too many resurrected people walking around for Him not to have lived again.  I know.  I am one of them.   But I spurn the blood that ransomed me.   I am unfaithful.  I leave Him.

     Every day I find my heart wanting to leave the home of my Father and go find my life somewhere else.  I am lured by the siren song of comfort and ease, of the perfect wrinkle free day, and of daydreams that are full of every imaginable thing.   I take my inheritance and try the road of my own desires.  And I never think of where my choices will lead until I taste the bitterness of the outcome.  Aloofness sets in and my heart begins to cool.  I must turn toward home again to warm my hardened heart.  Yet every time I go back to God I wonder.  Will He take me back again?  Have I wandered too far this time? 

     As He stands with outstretched hands I see that He has come not for the healthy, but the sick.  It is the only place I can go for restoration.  And this pattern is becoming more and more common for me.  The more I walk with Jesus, the more I see my tendency to want to walk through life apart from Him. 

But He has a love that is stronger than the death that threatens my soul and He has a jealousy that is fiercer than any grave that would forever bury me.   There is no place He will not go to rescue; there is no bitterness, no anger, no apathy that His death and life cannot heal. 

     What the wisemen on the ark forgot was that the baby below deck came to die for them.  He came to return blessing for cursing, life for death.  Like the pirate wisemen going back to the crèche to worship Jesus, God will resurrect the curses of my life and make them into the blessings He intends them to be.  This is Redemption’s song.  A beauty for ashes, a strength made perfect in weakness. 

     For that day, my spirit is longing.  And with the Spirit and the Bride, I say come.  Come and take the people of this world who think themselves wise and show them they are fools.  Come and give these fools the gift they need.  A humble heart surrendered to the Love that many waters cannot wash away.  And I, like all the other fools of the earth, will discover that I have nothing to give Him, nothing but my heart.

~Your Fellow Sojourner 

                 The boys reading by the tree (Noah's ark is docked under the sofa table.)

                                     In the Bleak Midwinter

       In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

               earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

               snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

               in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

               Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;

               heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.

               In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

               the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

               Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

               cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

               but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,

               worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

               What can I give him, poor as I am?

               If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

               if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

               yet what I can I give him:  give my heart.

                  By Christina G. Rossetti