Every year, I am fascinated by the many Christmas cards and letters I receive. I’m fascinated most of all by the variety of images with which we greet each other at this blessed season of the year. There are the usual crèche scenes, Santa Clauses, and poinsettias. There are also a number of birds, reindeer, and soft, furry little animals, some playing in the snow and some gathering around the infant Christ. But the figures that come again and again, Christmas after Christmas, are the Wise Men, those indefatigable, saddle-sore fellows from the mysterious lands of the East. They have ridden more miles for Hallmark and American Greeting Cards than they ever rode to get to Bethlehem! Invariably they follow the star, a great luminous body whose brilliance both vents and vexes the geometrical skills of the cards’ designers. The Wise Men would not be the Wise Men without their star. Or would they? It occurred to me this year that much of their journey that first Christmas was made without benefit of the star. They saw it when they left home and again as they left the palace of Herod. But in between, encompassing the vast distance from where their journey began to the few miles that marked its conclusion, they were completely without its benefit. This is why they had to make their stop at Herod’s palace. The star had guided them in the general direction of the little nation of Israel, but then it seemed to desert them and leave them on their own. They went to the court of Herod, assuming that the astrologers of the court could aid them in solving the riddle of the star. And they were right. Then, when they left the court, the star mysteriously appeared again, this time guiding them to the unlikely stable in Bethlehem. Not what they had expected, perhaps, but as T. S. Eliot put it in his poem, “Journey of the Magi,” “It was (you may say) satisfactory.”

Talk about realism! Isn’t that the way the journey of life happens for us? We have our moments of seeing and knowing when the star of clarity and certainty goes on before us; and then nothing. Everything seems to go blank. Someone upsets our jigsaw puzzle of life and its back to confusion and desperation. My life has had moments like that; has yours? I remember years ago as a young boy going to a traveling horror show on Halloween staged in the school auditorium. The show itself wasn’t too bad but walking home alone afterwards through the dark streets was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. My only comfort along the way was the presence of the streetlights. I felt safe in the light. When I reached the circle of light of each streetlight I strolled along as if I had all the time in the world. Then I dashed off like a championship sprinter for the next light. Life can be like that, marking our way in fits and starts from one light to the next with darkness the rest of the way. So it was for the Wise Men. They traveled from one sighting of the star to the next. They didn’t see it constantly. They had to travel long distances without it.

So what can we learn this morning from those ancient Wise Men and their vagrant star?

First, we learn that life is a journey. Life isn’t rootedness and it isn’t settledness. Life is a journey going from one place to another. And the moment we think we’ve got it all settled, tied up, or nailed down, it springs loose and begins to unravel. Have you noticed that? Perhaps this is why the greatest writers have always used the metaphor of the journey, the pilgrimage, the trip as a metaphor for life. From Geoffrey Chaucer to Herman Melville, from Dante to Mark Twain, it is the same in every age: life is a journey, of mind and heart and spirit and body.

Eventually, if we’re wise, we see that the most important quality in life is openness. It is the realization that life is a gift and that those persons who receive most from life are those ready to receive. That’s the way it was with the Wise Men. They followed the star when it appeared. They were open and willing to be led in a new direction. They knew that life at its best is an adventure, and that those who risk most are most ready to follow. That’s faith.

The second thing we learn from the Wise Men is that faith means most in times of darkness. Faith is for our journey in the night when we can’t always see the guiding star. How does the Letter to the Hebrews put it? “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 KJV) Contrary to the pictures on the Christmas cards, the Wise Men traveled long miles in the dark, without benefit of the guidance of the glorious star. The star got them started on their journey. It returned when their journey was at its climax, but in between, over miles and miles of barren and even hostile countryside and desert, it appeared to leave them on their own. The star was there all the time, but they couldn’t see it. They had to make their journey in the general direction it had given them but without concrete assurance that they would arrive at the exact destination they wanted.

This, too, is true to life. Most of our life is a journey in the night. We see the star of hope shining over a certain college and we go there, not knowing what lies beyond for us. We see it shining again over a career or profession and we go in that direction, hoping we have chosen wisely. We see the star shining in the eyes of our beloved and we get married but without absolute certainty. Again and again in life, we have moments of great clarity, when, for an instant, everything becomes clear and we feel we are making a wise choice. Then the light gives way to great stretches of darkness when we must walk forward in faith, with only the memory of the light to guide us.

The star of hope and certainty does not shine brightly at all times. When it doesn’t we must walk by faith, by the memories of past times of shining, and by the hope of its shining again. We cannot in our human finitude expect it to shine for us all the time. Even the disciples of Jesus when he was crucified lost their bearings in the darkness. But their star came out again, they followed it, and that’s why we are here this morning.

Perhaps, when a mood of cynicism and despair overtakes us – and it probably will – we can remind ourselves that we are not the first of our race to make life’s journey in a time of frequent darkness. Others have journeyed in darker times than ours and found that the star of hope returned. But notice this: the star of hope only returns for those who journey onward. If we surrender to depression and despair; if we cop out by embracing the fashionable cynicism of today; if we settle for a comfortable and aimless hedonism – we will never see the star again.

One final thing we learn from the Wise Men: at the end of the journey is Christ. In terms of the way we have usually thought about our Christian experience, we might have thought that Christ was at the beginning of the journey. But Christ is also at the end in a way that is almost too marvelous to anticipate. Life is a journey, a race, a long distance marathon often cloaked in darkness, but with Christ at the end. That is what the Wise Men found. And there was no question that the journey was worth it. T. S. Eliot to the contrary, the result was more than just “satisfactory”! That is good news to those of us in a dark place in our life’s journey. Right now the message of the star is this: when we have lost our way in the dark, when we are frightened, move on; we will come out on the other side of the darkness, and there will be light such as we cannot now believe.

At Notre Dame University, there is a great mosaic of Christ several stories high on the side of the Library. He stands with his arms outspread and lifted, and is clearly visible from the football stadium. The students long ago nicknamed him “Touchdown Jesus!” “Touchdown Jesus!” That’s the gospel in a nutshell. Jesus stands at the end of all our journeys, of all our struggles, ready to say, “You made it!” He’s always been there patiently waiting for us. Knowing he is there, we can endure our seasons of darkness, our times of pain, our moments of loss, our days of uncertainty. Knowing he is there but unseen we can continue our journeys in the night for we are confident that one day we will hear him say, “Well done good and faithful servant. You made it! Welcome home!”