Journey

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

January 7, 2018 – Epiphany

Matthew 2: 1-12

Ephesians 1: 1-12

Part of the enduring appeal of the magi who visit Jesus is that they are on a journey, a journey with a destination that in some ways they understand, but in many ways remains, as we read in Ephesians, a mystery. They know they seek the King of the Jews, the messiah, but they don’t know exactly what to expect, or where to find him. They’re taking a bit of a risk, and it’s for something they don’t fully understand, but they’re willing to take the risk. This is a theme many of us can relate to. After all, we, too, are on a journey. Life is a journey. For us Christians, we have a sense of the destination: it is the Kingdom of Heaven. It is God. We Presbyterians say that the purpose of life is to magnify God and to enjoy God forever. As Christians we believe that Jesus Christ is the goal and purpose of our lives, and worth the giving of our whole selves in pursuit of him.

But if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit we have a better understanding of the journey than we do of the goal. We seek the Kingdom of Heaven—but what exactly is it? A place of peace, hope, eternal love, oneness with God—but those are still largely abstractions.

And not only that—the path to get there isn’t that clear. We’re like the wandering magi in that we know that Christ is the goal;

we’ve seen his star on the horizon; but the exact location for that which we seek isn’t easy to discern. Furthermore, it takes us through unforeseen perils. The magi end up in Jerusalem, innocently asking where to find the Christ-child, not realizing that they are talking to Christ’s greatest enemy, Herod the Great, or that they are putting their own lives at risk by doing so. Likewise, our own journey is fraught with unforeseen peril and surprises. We don’t know what we’ll run across on the path. We often find ourselves lost, or at least misdirected, unsure where the path is. The path isn’t always clear— sometimes we have to find it, and as a result we take the wrong turn. Or maybe we get tired of the path and are tempted to take a different road, one that seems easier or clearer.

But here’s a thing that happens. There are angels on the way. They may not appear to us in dreams like the angel who warns the magi that Herod will try to kill them, but they’re angels nonetheless. We have friends, family members, mentors, who appear along the road to help us when we have wandered off or can’t discern the path. We have wisdom in authors and leaders and the saints who have trodden the path before us. Whether and when we take their advice depends on us; depends on how open we are to the Holy Spirit’s guidance. But the angels are there.

The Christian’s life is a life of wandering, but I’m reminded of a line from The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien: “Not all who wander are lost.” Those of us who love Jesus Christ know our goal—it’s just that sometimes we aren’t sure how to get there. Furthermore, there’s an exquisite mystery to the path we travel, and it is this: as long as we are seeking it with even imperfect sincerity, even with part of our hearts, we

can trust that we’ll reach our goal. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that our goal will reach us. This is what Jesus means in John 14, when he tells his confused disciples that

Jesus promises that he will come to take us to the place we seek, the journey’s end. But he also tells us we know the way there. Thomas, mystified, says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” And Jesus responds, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.”

In other words, if we know that the journey’s end is Christ, then we also the way to get there, because the way to get there is also Christ. The way we can get confused is to believe that somehow by not following him, by not following his path of love, mercy, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice, we can somehow shortcut our way to the Kingdom. That may work with some other things, but it doesn’t work with Jesus. The way to get to Christ is to be Christlike. A big part of the journey is learning how to be Christlike—getting better and better at it—seeking to improve at it consciously and deliberately every day. We don’t need to be perfect at it, but we do need always to be on the path. Let’s keep that in mind for the new year—may we this year, and every year, consciously seek to follow the path that is Christ, that we may find Christ.

In other words, for you Journey fans: Don’t stop believin’.