Signs of a Seeker

Mary Farwell writes: “I was listening to my 5-year-old son, Matthew, as he worked on his ‘Speak and Spell’ computer. He was concentrating intensely, typing words for the computer to say back to him.

“Matthew punched in the word ‘God.’ To his surprise, the computer said, ‘Word not found.’

“He tried again with the same reply. With great disgust, he stared at the computer and told it in no uncertain terms, ‘Jesus is not going to like this!’”

I think we can, from our human perspective, identify at least 3 types of people. There are those who have found a relationship with God and are seeking to know him better. There are those who are seeking God but have not yet found a relationship with him. And there are those who, like the “Speak and Spell” computer, live their lives without any reference to God whatsoever.

Today I would like to look with you at some of the signs of a seeker that we find in the account of the Magi who sought the newborn Christ child. Listen for God’s word to you from Matthew 2:1-12…

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men^[a] from the East came to Jerusalem, ² asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising,^[b] and have come to pay him homage.” ³ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; ⁴ and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah^[c] was to be born. ⁵ They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

⁶ ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler    who is to shepherd^[d] my people Israel.’”

⁷ Then Herod secretly called for the wise men^[e] and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. ⁸ Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” ⁹ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising,^[f]until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw that the star had stopped,^[g] they were overwhelmed with joy. ¹¹ On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ¹² And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The first sign of a seeker after God is hunger. 

In this passage we see three different reactions to Jesus the King. First, there is the reaction of Herod who hated Christ. Herod did not want anyone else to be King of the Jews, so he hated any other potential king. Herod himself was not a legitimate heir to the Jewish throne because he was only a half-Jew. He had members of his own family killed if he thought that they might possibly take his throne away from him.

Now we tend to think, “How horrible! What a despicable man!” But isn’t there just a little bit of Herod in each of us? We, like Herod, want to be on the throne. We want to be in control of our own lives, and we tend to walk over anyone who gets in our way, even if that means walking over God.

The second reaction we see to Christ in this passage is that of the priests and scribes who were indifferent to the reality of the Messiah. The priests and scribes knew what the Hebrew Scriptures said about where the Messiah was to be born, but they had no interest in going to see him. They were apparently more interested in playing their own religious game than in actually meeting God.

The third reaction to Christ that we see in this passage is that of the Magi who hungered after Christ. These Magi were foreigners from the east. Originally the Magi were Medes who tried to overthrow the Persians. They failed in their attempt and thereafter became priests. They, in fact, became teachers of the Persian kings. They were king-makers, if you will, and perhaps that is where the legend of the three kings originated.

These Magi, or great men, may well have been from Babylon. It may be that they learned about the Messiah by reading the book of Daniel. For the Hebrew prophet Daniel had lived for a time in Babylon and had been a teacher of the Babylonian wise men. (Daniel 2:48) Alternatively, these Magi may have learned about the Christ from the Jewish community that still existed in Babylon at the time of Christ’s birth. We do not know for certain how these Persian wise men found out about the Christ. But one thing we do know, having heard of him, they had a spiritual hunger to meet him. Why else would they have embarked on such a long journey and asked everywhere they went, “Where is he who is born King of the Jews?”

In the Antarctic summer of 1908-9, Sir Ernest Shackleton and three companions attempted to travel to the South Pole from their winter quarters. They set off with four ponies to help carry the load. Weeks later, their ponies dead, rations all but exhausted, they turned back toward their base, their goal not accomplished. Altogether, they trekked 127 days.

On the return journey, as Shackleton records in The Heart of the Antarctic, the time was spent talking about food—elaborate feasts, gourmet delights, sumptuous menus. As they staggered along, suffering from dysentery, not knowing whether they would survive, every waking hour was occupied with thoughts of eating.

The adult Jesus, who also knew the ravages of food deprivation during his life, said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

We can understand Shackleton’s obsession with food, which offers a glimpse of the passion Jesus wants us to have for a relationship with him.

The Magi hungered after some kind of relationship with this Christ of whom they had heard. Are we hungering after a relationship with Christ? If so, our hunger reveals the fact that we are seekers.

The second sign of a seeker after God that we see in this passage is a miraculous journey.

If we are seeking after the one true God, then our spiritual journey will be miraculous—a sovereign work of God. The Magi were miraculously led by a star to the place where the Christ child was living.

How gracious it was of God to guide the Magi in a way that they could understand! For you see, many people in that day, in the ancient east, believed in astrology. The Magi were apparently star-gazers themselves and they tried to read various messages in the stars. In fact, the Bible tells us that the stars do have a message for us. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” The heavens are constantly telling us of the reality of God. But God, on this one occasion, chose to speak through the stars in a special way and guide the Magi by one specific star to where the Christ child was living.

Now, you may think, “I wish God would speak to me like that and show me what he wants me to do with my life.” Well, God does speak to us today. He speaks to us especially through the Scriptures and he supernaturally guides the circumstances of our lives, whether we realize it or not. Even when circumstances seem the worst, that may be exactly where God is bringing about his special purpose for us.

John Yates writes, “The only survivor of a shipwreck washed up on a small uninhabited island. He cried out to God to save him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.

“Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a rough hut and put his few possessions in it. But then, one day, after hunting for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened; he was stung with grief.

“Early the next day, though, a ship drew near the island and rescued him.

“‘How did you know I was here?’ he asked the crew.

“‘We saw your smoke signal,’ they replied.”

God may not be using a star to guide your life. In fact, you may feel right now as though God is totally absent from your life. But your present difficulty may be the very instrument that God is sovereignly using to bring about his best purpose for your life and the lives of others.

The third sign of a seeker that we find here is joy. Joy will be overwhelmingly present in our lives if we are seeking after the one true God.

Bruce Thielemann once told the story of a little boy who was in his first Christmas pageant. He was 5. He was one of the shepherds—you know, the ones who wear bathrobes and sandals and carry cardboard crooks—not a lead shepherd, just a common shepherd standing in the back. But when it came time for the birth of Jesus, he pushed his way to the front so that he could see. Then, having seen, he stepped to the footlights and, looking out to the audience, cried to his parents, “Mommy! Daddy! Mary had her baby, and it’s a boy!”

We need to recover that kind of childlike enthusiasm and joy over the birth of Christ. Those stabs of joy, stabs of inconsolable longing for something that cannot be had in this world, will be present in the life of a true seeker. And those stabs of joy will reveal that we are on the right road in our search.

The fourth sign of a seeker is knowledge. When we find Christ, we will know him and not be deceived.

That was the case for the Magi. When they came to the house and saw the child with his mother Mary, they didn’t then leave and go looking somewhere else for the Christ. They knew, supernaturally, that they had found the one they were looking for. They knew that they need search no longer. They knew because one look at this child satisfied their spiritual hunger. In his presence was fullness of joy.

In our day it is popular to exalt doubt and to debunk certainty. We are like the family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. To them, in their piano world, came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first, the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the music—though invisible to them—above, yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they could not see.

Then one day a daring mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. They must revise all their old beliefs: none but the most conservative mouse could any longer believe in the Unseen Player.

Later, another explorer carried the explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. The Unseen Player came to be thought of as a myth. But the pianist continued to play. (The London Observer)

How would it be if one of the mice should crawl out of the piano and meet the piano player? Well then, the mouse who crawled out would certainly know he had seen the piano player and he would not be deceived.

Or how would it be if the piano player were to crawl into the piano? Certainly, he would frighten the mice by his mere size and they would run in fear. So if the pianist wanted to have a relationship with the mice he would have to become small like them. In fact, he would have to become a mouse. How then would the mice react to one mouse among them who claimed to be the pianist? Some might recognize in this mouse something beyond the merely mouse-like in nature. Those same mice might even bow down and worship this piano-player-become-mouse, just as the Magi worshiped Christ. Other mice might execute this piano-player-pretender as a crazy mouse, just as Christ was crucified. But the sign of a true seeker-mouse would be that he would recognize the piano player when he met him.