Walking with three wise men

Yesterday's message was about walking with the three wise men as recorded in the Bible.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
- Matthew 2:1-12


In case you might wonder what's so special about these three wise men. One thing that we can know is that they came from the east of Middle East, which means the place that they have came from may be modern day Iran, to India, to China. The Nativity Story says they came from Persia (Iran) which may not have been wrong. But certainly, these three men travelled a long way to Jerusalem to look for Jesus. In short, they were willing to look for the truth, to seek it no matter what it takes, as shown. This brings us to one central issue: more than often, how willing are we to go out and seek the truth, rather than live and let live. Understanding that other people might be reading this blog, today I want to take a risk and says something which might sound offensive to others.

Very often, we see people living life as it is, without asking question. Socrates had once said, 'an unexamined life is not a life worth living'. However, today, due to the affluence that we have, we are easily succumbed to a life where we no longer question about life and were so willing to stay in our comfort zone, that we were unwilling to move out of it and seek our life deeper. I was looking at my YRC, and I sometime ask, how come every year they want to do the same thing in the same place. Every year they have gift exchange in the RC and every year they have countdown in the RC. Then, when Charlie suddenly became heavily involved in his church, I thought here goes. Then when it became my turn, I realised, I want to ask, I want to seek and I want to knock the door. I dun want to be comfortable just standing outside the door, refusing to knock on it and content with just seeing the door. It was just like when I look at people who are so busy trying to make it rich everyday, and never stopped to ponder about anything deeper than life itself. Perhaps my view is a heavily biased one, one that is absolutely tilted towards Jesus Christ, but I think it's still worthwhile to take a break, perhaps go out and take a walk, to look it out. One thing perhaps I realise, that Ps Jeff did not mention (or I didn't pay attention to that part) is that these three wise men probably left whatever they were doing to come to Jerusalem to look for Jesus. And they never regretted the trip. Sometimes we get too tied down by whatever thing we are doing, and we failed to see, perhaps the signs, perhaps the happenings around us....

And even when sometimes people go out and seek the truth, found it, sometimes, it's not unusual to see people deny the truth and not accept it. Let's see, if one day you realise that whatever you do has been wrong, whatever you have believed in are all fake, what you have done you ought not to do, then are you going to humble down and accept the truth? It is not unusual to see that people were unwilling to do so. Or maybe one day, you see a change in someone, and you just continued to treat that person as what that person used to be. It is not unheard of. I know of friends who experienced this kind of stuff. Sometimes when the truth strikes in, it can transform a person.

Now here, are you going to go and seek the truth? But bear in mind, the truth has to be sought, not be speculated. We often speculate about our own truth and thinking that the truth is always more than meet the eyes. One thing, if gravity can be determined by empirical experiment whether it's true, then certainly the truth can be measured in that way too. In all my entire Christian walk, I have sought to make sure that I have always enough evidence on hand to cement my faith. And I always get it. Being a historian helps, and dun think I have not considered the other side of the story. Christianity is a 'religion' (actually it is a relationship with God, not a religion) which is heavily based on history. Its validity lies whether Jesus Christ has really resurrected or not. If one can prove this to be negative, than all this while, my effort would have been wasted. This is the only thing one needs to do to make me go back to my old ways. But it's not only like that. Even other issues can be resolved by empirically studying them and putting things into their proper context.

So, are you going to seek the truth?

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