We are all pilgrims on the same journey . . . but some pilgrims have better road maps. That snippet of sagacity from one of the Mason family’s favorite fun novelists, Nelson DeMille.

The idea of life as a journey is fundamentally biblical. Our entire faith tradition begins with the divine command to Abraham to go. Leave your home country and go to a place I will show you. It continues with God’s call to Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Promised Land. And it becomes even more of a spiritual journey than a geographical one as Jesus tells us to let go of all those things that keep us from following him.

This being what we call Epiphany Sunday, when we consider the wise men from the East who followed the Star of Bethlehem and journeyed to Jesus, we have a clear model of faithfulness to guide us as we consider our resolutions in this new year. We may all be pilgrims on a journey, but the wise men found Jesus, which means they had a better map for us to follow. Let’s look more closely at the way of the Magi.

First, notice something important in any attempt you make in your journey to Jesus: God is the one who will lead you to the Son of God. If you know this, if you really trust this, then you ought to take a deep breath right now. [Pause for sigh.] All together now—exhale. Good. The Christian life is one long journey to Jesus, but just as the star in the East guided the wise men, so God will always be giving you signs and hints and pointers to lead you to Jesus. In fact, the world itself is alive with them already.

The psalmist says that the heavens are declaring the glory of God. John tells us in the first words of his Gospel that all things were created through the word of God, which he equates with the person of Jesus Christ. And Paul tells us that all things visible and invisible are held together in Christ, who is the head of all creation. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins declared: The world is charged with the grandeur of God.[1] Anywhere we turn, we may bump into another sign of God: in a star in the East, in the ooze of oil crushed, in the laughter of a baby, or even in the eyes of a nurse who lovingly inserts the port for a bag of chemotherapy. Hopkins puts it this way in another poem: Christ plays in 10,000 places/Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his/ To the Father through the features of men’s faces.[2] It’s not just a general feeling of God’s presence in the world, Hopkins is saying; it’s the real presence of Christ himself whom God is making known to us everywhere.

God is actively at work in the world and in you, drawing you toward Jesus, pushing you toward him, calling you to search for him until you find him again and again and again. If any one of you finds Christ this year, if any one of you bows down to worship him because you have knelt before him in your heart and confessed him as your Lord and King, it will not be because you have succeeded by your efforts so much as God will have succeeded by God’s efforts.

Of course it’s easy to say that all the Magi saw was a star and that all they were doing was wishing upon a star. Even Christians have their doubts. C. S. Lewis, that great interpreter of the Christian faith, admitted as much when he said that we’re all afraid of the jeer from those who say Christianity is just “pie in the sky.” But what if it is? he asks. What if the very wishing is put into us by God? What if the reason we hope is because God wants to fulfill our hopes?[3]

Again we should feel the blessing and relief of this. Many of us have already made New Year’s resolutions of one kind or another, right? Lose weight. Get in shape. Read more. Internet less. Save more. Spend less. Whatever. And what will happen is what always happens: we’ll stay with it awhile and feel good about ourselves as long as we do, and then we’ll fall off the wagon and feel contempt for our weakness. We’ll feel like failures and settle back into a life of low expectations. We’ll think we should never have wanted more so that we’ll never be disappointed again.

But that’s not the way to approach your spiritual journey this or any other year. Keep firmly in mind that it doesn’t all depend upon you. You do not have to create the reality; you only have to respond to it. God is doing the creating; you only have to do the looking.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning puts her finger on this when she says, Earth’s crammed with heaven,/ and every common bush afire with God./But only he who sees, takes off his shoes./The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.[4]

Isn’t that true? Think about the wise men. Do you think only they were able to see the star in the East? No, it was there for all to see, but only they saw it as a sign. Only they saw it as something more than any star. They saw it as a sign pointing to the birth of the King of the Jews.

And they did so because they looked intently. When others just looked at it, they looked into it.

The poet Rod Jellema calls this the “second look” or the “double vision” that 99 percent of people fail to pursue. Poets, he says, take time to catch a kind of double vision of this or that thing, this or that moment of awareness—simply because it’s fascinating. When he looks at the world or anything in it, he looks at it against the backdrop of Eden, he says, the lost Eden, almost invisible and always fragmentary and splintered, but enough of a presence that he may find in it a slender grace.[5]

This is what the wise men did, and this is what wise men and women of faith like you and me can learn to do. We can look into things more deeply and see what is in them or behind them. We can take a step toward Bethlehem with the Magi and move closer to Jesus with every step.

Over the next 40 days, many of you will be reading the New Testament or listening to it daily on the MP3 we’ve passed out. The key is not just to read the word but to look for the Word himself in the word. The hope is that you will not hear the letter of the word but the Spirit of God in the sound of the word. And in doing so you will feel that you have really encountered the God who leads you and accompanies you on your journey to Jesus.

The spiritual writer Joan Chittister relates an old story about this process. Where shall I look for enlightenment? the disciple asked.

Here, the wise one said.

When will it happen? the disciple asked.

It is happening right now, the wise one answered.

Then why don’t I experience it?

Because you don’t look.

What should I look for?

Nothing. Just look.

Look at what?

At anything your eyes light on.

But must I look in a special way?

No, the ordinary way will do.

But don’t I always look the ordinary way?

No, you don’t.

But why ever not?

Because to look, you must be here. And you are mostly somewhere else.[6]

Being fully present yourself in the place you are and in the moment that is God’s gift to you at any time is the only way you will experience all that you can of God this year. But I want to offer you three very quick helps from the Magi as you do.

One, do your searching with others. We don’t know how many wise men there were, although tradition tells us three. But we know that the spiritual life is best practiced with others. Make it your goal this year to journey with others in worship, Bible study, and spiritual conversation. You alone must make the journey, but you must not make the journey alone.

For some of you that may mean joining the church this year and committing to a people to travel with. Failing to commit in a covenantal way to the body of Christ is like being a consumer instead of a disciple. Consumers take what they need for themselves from others and go their way; disciples give what they have to others and walk the way together with them.

Two, make your spiritual journey a mission in some way. The wise men moved from where they were to another place, and we all know that when we go on a mission trip of some sort—whether to Africa or Peru or the Dominican Republic or to South or West Dallas or to Mobile at spring break this year—we find ourselves changed by the journey. We find Jesus in the poor stables of Bethlehem all over the world that are not our own neighborhoods. We will have opportunities this year for you to go, and I urge to see this not only as an act of charity but as a step toward Jesus. When you go to serve others, you are following the Star of Bethlehem to Jesus. The effect of mission journeys is two-dimensional: what it does for those we go to serve, and what it does for those who go to serve.

Three, give the Lord worthy gifts this year. The whole tradition of Christmas gift giving really comes from the gold, frankincense and myrrh brought by the wise men. There’s nothing wrong with our giving gifts to each other as expressions of love, but the fact that we do it on the celebration of Jesus’ birth ought to demand that we give our best gifts to him. Can you imagine that on your birthday, everyone who showed up to celebrate you came with gifts only for each other? But that’s what too many of us do when we fail to honor the Lord with our best gifts.

Now, this is not a direct appeal for more money for the church this year. I can make that in other ways and at other times. In fact, I want to thank you that when I did appeal to you at the end of the year last week, many of you responded and narrowed our deficit tremendously. Thank you very, very much. But it is also true that giving tangible gifts to Jesus means giving them somewhere—it’s not just the thought that counts. When we give gifts to Jesus, we don’t just throw them up in the air for him to catch if he can. We give to things he cares about.

The wise men gave Jesus gold, which represented a gift fit for a king. They gave him frankincense, which connotes priesthood and prayer. And they gave him myrrh, which symbolizes suffering and death. We give generously and sacrificially as if to the treasury of the king of our hearts. We give in a way that implies our priesthood of the world. That is, something that does some good in the name of Jesus. We include in our giving those whose suffering and injustice can be relieved by our gifts.

As you begin this journey to Jesus this year, commit yourself to searching for Jesus intently, doing so alongside others, and giving worthy gifts to the work of Jesus in the world.

And remember that since God is with you, it’s the journey that counts most. The medieval mystic saint Teresa of Avila said it well: All the way to heaven is heaven.