Wise Men Still Seek Him
“‘WISE MEN still seek Him,’ reads the bumper sticker.
Fools think they are wise, so they do not search. The three wise men go on a pilgrimage, on a search, because they know they are not wise.
Just as saints know they are sinners but sinners think they are saints, good people do not call themselves ‘good people’ and wise men do not call themselves wise.
Thus, the wise seek. And all seekers find, according to our Lord’s own promise. But only seekers find. If the wise man in us will travel far from home, comfort and security, then we may arrive at Bethlehem.
As Pascal says, there are only three kinds of people: those who have sought God and found Him (these are reasonable and happy), those who are seeking God and have not yet found Him (these are reasonable and unhappy), and those who neither seek God nor find Him (these are unreasonable and unhappy). Everyone in the second class makes it into the first; all seekers find. But only seekers.
…The wise men have seen His sign. They were eagerly looking, ready and alert like the shepherds, ‘keeping watch by night’ over their flock of responsibilities — the heavens. The stars were their sheep. The earthly shepherds were surprised by angels from heaven, while the heaven-gazing wise men were surprised by a baby in a cow barn.
Like the shepherds, they came — a long, dangerous journey. But nothing is more dangerous than missing Christ. Life itself is a journey, a pilgrimage. The image of the road is perhaps the most powerful in all our literature, especially all our great epics: ‘Gilgamesh,’ ‘The Odyssey,’ ‘The Aeneid,’ ‘The Divine Comedy,’ ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ For man, as distinct from everything else, life is a search for our true identity. Man alone has an identity crisis. And that true identity is found only in God, for He alone, as our Author and Designer, has the secret of our identity in His eternal plan. ‘Your life is hid with Christ in God,’ says St. Paul, and ‘our citizenship is in heaven.’
The wise men come to worship, just as the shepherds do. That’s why they are wise; not because they know the means, the way, but because they know the end; not because they lift their heads to the stars but because they bow their knees to the Baby. Wisdom is not the pride of cleverness in knowledge, but the humility of holiness. ‘The fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom.’
Different from the shepherds in every way but one — rich, not poor; Eastern, not Western; clever, not simple; from afar, not from near; unearthy, not earthy — yet they are like the shepherds in ‘the one thing necessary’: Like Mary, they sit at Jesus’ feet. They know the end of their pilgrimage. They know the ultimate purpose of human existence; adoration of God and love of man in Christ, the God-man. Whether we are like the shepherds or like the wise men therefore matters not at all. ‘In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free.’
They bring gifts. They open their treasures. Some of us have rich talents to bring to Christ; others, like the shepherds, have only themselves, their poverty, their work. What matters is not what we give but whether we give, how much we give (all, like the widow’s pence), and how we give (freely, ‘for God loves a cheerful giver’).
Remember: Life too is a gift. God gives us our lives, our very existence, and then His life in substitution when we forfeited ours by sin. Our fundamental response to God must be like His to us: the gift of self.
For that is the inescapable law, since it is the very nature of ultimate reality, the Blessed Trinity itself. The Father eternally gives Himself to the Son, and the Son in return eternally gives Himself to the Father, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from them as this mutual gift of love, so real that He eternally becomes a distinct Person. Marriage and childbearing are holy because they dimly reflect this ultimate reality on a biological level.
…‘They returned praising God,’ for they came seeking God. As St. Augustine says in the last, great sentence of his ‘Confessions’: ‘They that seek the Lord shall find Him, and they that find Him shall praise Him.’”
~Peter Kreeft
Fools think they are wise, so they do not search. The three wise men go on a pilgrimage, on a search, because they know they are not wise.
Just as saints know they are sinners but sinners think they are saints, good people do not call themselves ‘good people’ and wise men do not call themselves wise.
Thus, the wise seek. And all seekers find, according to our Lord’s own promise. But only seekers find. If the wise man in us will travel far from home, comfort and security, then we may arrive at Bethlehem.
As Pascal says, there are only three kinds of people: those who have sought God and found Him (these are reasonable and happy), those who are seeking God and have not yet found Him (these are reasonable and unhappy), and those who neither seek God nor find Him (these are unreasonable and unhappy). Everyone in the second class makes it into the first; all seekers find. But only seekers.
…The wise men have seen His sign. They were eagerly looking, ready and alert like the shepherds, ‘keeping watch by night’ over their flock of responsibilities — the heavens. The stars were their sheep. The earthly shepherds were surprised by angels from heaven, while the heaven-gazing wise men were surprised by a baby in a cow barn.
Like the shepherds, they came — a long, dangerous journey. But nothing is more dangerous than missing Christ. Life itself is a journey, a pilgrimage. The image of the road is perhaps the most powerful in all our literature, especially all our great epics: ‘Gilgamesh,’ ‘The Odyssey,’ ‘The Aeneid,’ ‘The Divine Comedy,’ ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ For man, as distinct from everything else, life is a search for our true identity. Man alone has an identity crisis. And that true identity is found only in God, for He alone, as our Author and Designer, has the secret of our identity in His eternal plan. ‘Your life is hid with Christ in God,’ says St. Paul, and ‘our citizenship is in heaven.’
The wise men come to worship, just as the shepherds do. That’s why they are wise; not because they know the means, the way, but because they know the end; not because they lift their heads to the stars but because they bow their knees to the Baby. Wisdom is not the pride of cleverness in knowledge, but the humility of holiness. ‘The fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom.’
Different from the shepherds in every way but one — rich, not poor; Eastern, not Western; clever, not simple; from afar, not from near; unearthy, not earthy — yet they are like the shepherds in ‘the one thing necessary’: Like Mary, they sit at Jesus’ feet. They know the end of their pilgrimage. They know the ultimate purpose of human existence; adoration of God and love of man in Christ, the God-man. Whether we are like the shepherds or like the wise men therefore matters not at all. ‘In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free.’
They bring gifts. They open their treasures. Some of us have rich talents to bring to Christ; others, like the shepherds, have only themselves, their poverty, their work. What matters is not what we give but whether we give, how much we give (all, like the widow’s pence), and how we give (freely, ‘for God loves a cheerful giver’).
Remember: Life too is a gift. God gives us our lives, our very existence, and then His life in substitution when we forfeited ours by sin. Our fundamental response to God must be like His to us: the gift of self.
For that is the inescapable law, since it is the very nature of ultimate reality, the Blessed Trinity itself. The Father eternally gives Himself to the Son, and the Son in return eternally gives Himself to the Father, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from them as this mutual gift of love, so real that He eternally becomes a distinct Person. Marriage and childbearing are holy because they dimly reflect this ultimate reality on a biological level.
…‘They returned praising God,’ for they came seeking God. As St. Augustine says in the last, great sentence of his ‘Confessions’: ‘They that seek the Lord shall find Him, and they that find Him shall praise Him.’”
~Peter Kreeft
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