500 Miles: What the wise men and their star can teach us about love

My love for music was forged early on in my life. Some of my earliest memories growing up as a kid are standing on a chair behind a pulpit singing the song “Praising the Lord” with my mom and dad. That love was a fire that was stoked again and again by countless influences and musical styles and genres. Growing up as a kid in the 80’s, I was exposed to an eclectic blend of musical variety. Big hair, backbeats, and bizarre synthesizer progressions littered the musical landscape of a very unique brand of musicality. While some of the popular 80’s groups have survived the fads and trends of an era (U2, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith), there were countless other one hit wonders who flew like a comet across the music scene never to be heard from again. One such group was a set of twins from Scotland called the Proclaimers. The band is probably best remembered by their song, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).” Children of the 80’s will remember the quasi-obnoxious tune “…And I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 hundred more, just to be the one who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door.” Then comes the deep lyrics, “Bum-ba-da-bum-bum” It wasn’t the most intellectually stimulating lyric. If the song was annoying, the video was even worse.

Still the sentiment of traveling a far distance to be with the one you love is a thought that has been repeated in every successive generation of music. When it comes to the Christmas season, traveling a long distance to be with the one you Love takes on a completely new dynamic. As a child, I heard the Christmas story. As one of my favorite Christmas songs put it, “…A census, a manger, two travel worn strangers, the stage was finally set.” Some of the most intriguing characters in the familiar story are the wise men. Beckoned by a star that pointed the way to a baby’s boy, these men from the East traversed the terrain to find their way to the Christ child. As a child, I imagined these wise men traveling across the desert in the night atop massive camels carrying all the gifts for the baby Jesus, their way illumined by the massive star that shone the path to the Christ-child.

Matthew 2:2 records that they saw the star and began following its path which led them to Jesus. Much has been made regarding these men and this star. These men came from the East which would have been from the region of Babylon. The original term “Magi” had in view the concept of a special interpreter of signs particularly in astronomy. The question then begs to be asked, how did they make the connection between the sign of the star and the coming of a Messiah in Judea? Well 600 years earlier, this same Babylonian kingdom was filled with Jewish captives, not the least of which was a group of young men who were elevated in the government as the best and the brightest, namely a man by the name of Belshazzar which you probably know him better as Daniel. It’s entirely possible that Daniel taught them Numbers 24:17, which reads “I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near; a Star shall come out of Jacob; a Scepter shall rise out of Israel.” Furthermore, Daniel clearly prophecied that 483 years after the captivity of Israel the Messiah would be cut off, so it’s possible these wise men would have known who it was that was coming, and when He would be there. It is astounding to think that God would judge His people for their sin in Babylon and at the same time, leave a remnant of hope through Daniel’s prophecy in that same land that a Messiah would come and take the punishment for the sins of all mankind. Think of the wisdom, power, and forethought to orchestrate a kingdom’s rise (Babylon) and the captivity of another (Israel) to not only judge Israel’s sin, but to put one man in place of influence to teach other young men who almost 500 years later, would travel to see the consummation of this incredible plan.

It’s even more astounding when you consider the star that led these men on this incredible journey. This past Friday (December 23rd), I had the opportunity to attend a Christmas service at Passion City Church in Atlanta and what I heard put these concepts in a completely different light. Not much is known of this star, except that it led these men to the Christ. It’s possible that God could have created a new star for this purpose, He’s certainly powerful enough to do this, since He created the billion trillion stars in the observable universe and “determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.” (Psalm 147:4) Recent evidence and computer modeling suggests that at or near the time of Jesus’ birth, the star Regulus came into alignment with planet Mercury creating a super bright star in the night sky (one that wise men could see in the East). If that’s the case, Regulus is the brightest star of the constellation Leo and Mercury is known as the king planet. This would mean that the Kingly star (the Scepter) had come into alignment with the Lion constellation to point the way for the King of Kings, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. God was literally moving heaven and earth thousands of years before the wise men to bring these orbits into alignment so that these men who had heard a prophecy 400 to 500 years earlier from one Jewish captive who had been raised up in a foreign government could see a star and lead to a tiny baby. This, to me, is just astounding.

The pastor went on to share that one of the most astounding truths from this star was that God sees us, way before we see Him. See the star Regulus is 77.63 light years away. A light year is 5,878,499,810,000 miles, multiply that number times 77.63 and that’s how far away Regulus is from earth. That would mean that for the wise men to see the light from that star in the East, that light would have started to travel to earth 77.63 years BEFORE the wise men saw it. Before these men were born, God was sending the light that would bring them to Jesus. God is always lighting our path to Jesus well before we begin the journey to come to HIm. That’s a little bit more than walking 500 miles and walking 500 more to fall down at our door. God moved heaven and earth and kingdoms and men to tell these men in the East that the Christ child was born.

What is further astounding is that we know so little about these men. All that is known is that they came from the East, what they brought as gifts, and how they returned a different way. They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The gold they brought would have signified His Kingship. The Frankincense was what would have burned continually in the Tabernacle to signify God’s holiness. The myrrh would have been what they would have wrapped a body in to make preparation for burial. In these gifts we see a holy King who was born to die. These men little knew the story they were telling when they selected the gifts to bring to the child.

After the wise men left, there’s an interesting postscript to the story. In Matthew 2:12, God warns these men in a dream not to return to Herod to tell Him of Jesus’ birth, but to go home a different way reminding us of another truth, anyone who comes to Jesus will go home different. What an incredible story, what amazing forethought, what majestic power, what a wonderful Child, and what an overwhelming Savior. If this Christmas season, you find yourself feeling alone or forgotten, remember all that God did to bring this star to these men in a foreign land, how a holy King died for them, and remember how returning to the manger can drastically change our perspective and leave us different than before. The twin brothers from Scotland had nothing on Jesus in PROCLAIMING how far they would go to show how much they loved us. “Greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down His life or His friend.” (John 15:13)

#Christmas #WiseMen #GodsPower #Music #Proclaimers #Love