Be A Wise Man

This week in the church’s calendar we celebrated the giving of the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus by the wise men from the East. What does it take to be a wise man? Were they born that way or did they have to study really hard to achieve that title? The bible is full of wisdom that people over many thousands of years have stopped to take the time to think about and then write down. Some of the books of the bible are actually called the wisdom literature books. Those three books are Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes. There are many other ancient books not found in the bible that are also full of wisdom written by famous people who might be considered wise men and women. The message from the story in the bible about the three kings looking for Jesus though gives us a clue as to what wisdom is. Wisdom is the searching for something. Many philosophers spend their whole lives searching for something called ‘the truth’. What exactly is that? In simplest form the truth is the point of the beginning. For example, many scientists believe that the beginning of all things is the point in time called the Big Bang. For many people that is the starting point of all things. But others would argue, and quite rightly so, what existed before the Big Bang? Is the Big Bang an explosion of some ancient gases that existed in the Universe before then? Who provided the spark to ignite the gases? If you think about trying to light a camp fire in the woods to keep warm, somebody had to provide the match to light the wood, or in the old days somebody had to rub the sticks together to get the flame. So, in reality, seeking the truth can be a very long exercise because there is always a layer that can be unwrapped that asks another question to a perceived answer. For us as religious people we attempt to define the truth point as God. God is the beginning. God created himself (I don’t know how) but because He is an all powerful being He has the power to create time, space and himself out of nothing. Believing that God is the truth point makes life simpler. And so as we continue another week of exams here at our school, let us adopt a page from the book of the wise men and continue to study hard. A tip that I have found useful is to always start revising from the beginning of the text book or our notes. Think of it as practicing a piece of music on the piano or any other instrument that you play, the more you start from the beginning the easier it will be to learn the song. Our school’s motto – The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom. Be a wise man, find the truth today.

Amen.