This is always the time of year when Matthew 2 comes up. If you flip back to the first part of Matthew chapter 2, it starts out with the visit of the Magi. And it says; 1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2. Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. That is something we have all heard. We are familiar with this scripture. We are familiar with the story of these three men, we don’t know for sure it there is three. Traditionally we show them as figures in the manger scene. This is probably a couple of years after Jesus’ birth. They come searching. These are probably what we could call Zoroastrian priests. They were from Persia and they followed a religion that was started by Zoroaster who was a Persian prophet. The thing that makes this and sets it aside a little bit from the other religions of the day was the fact that Zoroaster believed there was one god. There was one god that created everything. Does that sound familiar? In a day when most religions had multiple gods, this prophet was saying there was one god that created everything. He was also, if I understand it right, was involved with the sciences at that time. In those days science and mysticism were kind of together. What happened in the heavens and the stars had a lot to do with what this deity that Zoroaster professed. The things that happened in the sky had a lot to do with what he wanted. So, when these astrologers, basically, came to look at the configuration of the heavens in those days, they saw this bright star. They came and went back and looked in the traditions of this religion that said that each of the millennium on earth would be marked by the coming of a new saviour. This is what their religion said. I looked this up on the internet because I was very interested in this. It said; The end of each of its millennia is to be marked by the coming of a new saviour, successor and posthumous son of Zoroaster. The third and last saviour, Saoshyans, will bring about the final judgment, dispense the drink of immortality, and usher in the new world, Thus, finite Time, which had come forth from Infinite Time, merges with it again after the interval of 12,000 years. That is neither here or there with us, but interesting to see that these three men were drawn by an act, a happening, in the sky and were searching for God, more or less. Searching for God. They looked for him where they would normally think to look for him through their religion, which had to do with the stars or the conjunction of the planets, or this star of Bethlehem we like to call it. And they went in search of God. And they kind of had an idea of where to look. They were guided. But I wonder today, where do we look for God? Where do we look for him? Let me give you a little example here. This is a story from a collection of Arabian sayings. We focus a lot of time on the mid-east and this is kind of a mid-east legend story. It goes this way: "One night the king was roused from sleep by a fearful stumping on the roof above his bed. Alarmed, he shouted: ‘Who’s there?’ ‘A friend,’ came the reply from the roof. ‘I’ve lost my camel.’ Perturbed by such stupidity, Ebrahim screamed:" You fool! Are you looking for a camel on the roof?’ ‘You fool!’ the voice from the roof answered."Are you looking for God in silk clothing and lying on a golden bed?" And the story goes on to tell how these simple words filled the king with such terror that he arose from his sleep to become a most remarkable saint. What do you think about that story? The camel on the roof kind of represents a real story, or makes us think a little bit about how we are searching and where we are looking for God. I think very many people in our culture today look for him at Wal-mart. Or they look for him at the credit card company. Or they look for him in their bank account or their wealth and make that their god. Christmas doesn’t do much for that, does it? We tend to spend a lot of time at Wal-mart, or in the stores, thinking the more expensive present we buy the better the person is going to like us. We have to admit now, don’t we, that comes into play some doesn’t it? Even with us, with me, you tend to think that way. I was talking with a friend of mine who was buying some jewelry for his wife. He was telling me he went to the store and looked at a piece he liked really well. And he says, that looks about like what I would like to get. And when he found out it was $1700, he changed his mind and looked somewhere else. His wife, talking with her later about what he did buy her, which was an exquisite little cross with some diamonds in it which I thought was beautiful, she made a comment that, well, he didn’t think I was worth the other one. I don’t think he told her what the price was. If he had, I’m sure she would thought the same as him. But still, that struck me. I didn’t expect this lady to make that comment. Underneath it all , I think we are kind of looking a little bit in the wrong place with this gift giving. There is another story. This is another Arabic story about "Seventeen Camels" that tells of a Mohammedan who died and left his seventeen camels to be divided among his three sons. One was to receive on ninth; one was to get one half; and the third son was to inherit one third of the camels. Seventeen camels, however, aren’t evenly divisible by three. Hence the three sons argued long and loud about what to do. In desperation they agreed to let a certain wise man decide for them. It is interesting to see what he did. He was seated in front of his tent with his own camel staked out back. After hearing the case, the wise man took his own camel and added it to the other seventeen camels to make it eighteen. He then took one ninth of the eighteen, or two camels. To another he gave one half, or nine camels. To the third he gave one third, or six camels. On top of it all, he still had his own camel left. Now you can do the math, but I think a lot of us try to find God and solve problems of life on our own. Kind of mathematically, if you will. And I don’t know how the mathematics works out on this, but it sounds pretty neat where it all worked out. And I think we tend to look for God in that way where we can put him in a precise, mathematical box calculation that we know where he is at and we can do this and we do that. Not quite that way, is it? So we have three wise men coming from the East looking for a king. They are pretty naive so they went to the king of the land, figuring it was his son, saying we have seen a star and we are looking for him. And king Herod, who was Herod the Great, who routinely killed family members if he thought they were threatening his throne in any direction. Family member, wives, it didn’t matter to him. If they were a threat to him, they were out of there. So what do you think when he hears about a king being born? He had no idea. So he calls his people in and he says, where is this cotton-picken king going to be born? And they say, well, it says in the writing, in Bethlehem. Out of you who are the least, a king will come. And so apparently the wise men weren’t thinking too good here. And Herod tries to work them a little bit and says, okay, you go out and find this king so I can worship him. Then come back and tell me where he is. You know the story. The wise men left. And you would think as much notoriety as the king Herod had and all the things he did, that they would know if there was a king, a successor somewhere, that he would likely kill him. My reading kind of suggested they were like the absent-minded professor who got so wrapped up in his calculations and all these other things that he didn’t think in terms of what really happens. They were basically seeking this king. Very innocently, I think. But then, finally, they have an epiphany. In other words, God comes to them and says, you need to leave by a different route because king Herod is going to take care of this contender to the throne. I think their searching for God brought them face to face with him. And that is what we need to realize that we can not find God in mathematics. We can’t even find him in here,(the bible) can we, if we don’t have him here,(in your heart) to start with. There is no way without knowing in your heart that these words are true that you can find the wisdom, that you can find God in here. You have to find him on his own terms. You have to search for him in the right places. And the place to start is in your heart. So if there is anything that you get out of what I have said this morning, I pray that it would be that you need to search for God, first, in you. Then, search for him where he will be found in your life. He is not a god that stays put. He is a god that is with us, who acts in history as he did with the wise men who intervenes on our behalf as he did at a little manger in Bethlehem, a little stable, and brought us himself in the flesh. An event at Bethlehem is a major intervention of God in this world. And he intervenes by that little child. And he intervenes today through the holy spirit, in each of our lives that we must search for, diligently, just at the wise men searched for their king, their saviour. We now know where our saviour is and we search to do his will each day. Do that. And by the by, tell somebody about it. Share with somebody the good news of Jesus Christ. And it will be a gift that is far more valuable than Myrrh, frankincense, or gold. Far more valuable than anything that you can think of. So search while he may be found.

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