Going another way  by Rev. Kurt H. Asplundh

   "Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return
to Herod, they departed for their own country another way." (Matt. 2:
12)

   When we take a journey it is often possible to go in one way and
return in another. We do not have to retrace our steps but may take a
different route.

   When we read of Wise men from the East who came to find the Lord,
the question of direction takes on special importance. While they came
to find the Lord by a route that led through Jerusalem, they went back
to their country by "another way."

   Journeys on earth represent spiritual progress and direction. We
move from place to place a great deal. Although many of our routine
trips are along familiar roads and continue the same day after day, we
have the opportunity to make choices and changes. It would be possible
to trace a person's travels through a lifetime and discover some idea
of that person's loves. It is our loves that lead us to changes; to
travel to new places and to go in new ways. So it is with every move we
make on earth, but it is eminently true of journeys mentioned in the
Word, for these are correspondential.

   We are taught in the Heavenly Doctrine that "whenever travelling,
sojourning and passing from place to place occur in the Word nothing
else is suggested to the angels than such change of state as exists
with them" (AC 1463). This spiritual reality is illustrated in common
speech. For example, we may say that someone is "headed in the right
direction" or "setting a true course" when we mean that his mental or
moral development is good. Of someone who has been in trouble and has
corrected himself, we may say he has made a "turnaround' The question,
"Where am I going?" has direct application to discovering our state of
life in self-examination.

   The point is that natural journeys and directions represent the
progress of our spirit. We are taught that there are actual pathways in
the spiritual world which lead to the different societies of heaven or
hell there. As we make our life decisions, we can be seen turning onto
one path or another and moving along it toward a final place of our
choosing.

   The journeys mentioned in the Word all refer to our spiritual
progress. The Exodus is an obvious example. What was meant by the
journey from slavery to the promised land but the progress we make in a
life of regeneration? We all are born with hereditary tendencies which
would eventually enslave us unless we escaped from them.

   It is another journey mentioned in the Word that we are considering
in this sermon: the journey of the Wise men. The fact to notice is that
they came one way and returned another. To find the Lord the Wise men
followed the star first to Jerusalem and Herod, the King; and from
Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Having seen and worshiped Him, they were
instructed in a dream to go back another way (Matt. 2: 12).

   This simple fact in Scripture gives evidence of the most tremendous
of all spiritual changes and gives testimony to the supreme importance
of the Lord's advent. The coming of the Lord changed the whole
spiritual direction of the church.

   The state of the church at the time of the Advent is represented by
the quality of Herod, then ruler in Jerusalem. Herod was no Jew, but an
Edomite. The Writings teach that Edom signifies the natural man in
falsities from the love of self. The man in such a state inwardly
despises, rejects, and vilifies anything of a higher nature, seeking to
destroy spiritual good and truth.

   In addition, the Writings teach that a king, when spoken of in an
evil sense, means the power or dominion of the natural man over the
spiritual which destroys all the truths and goods of the church (AE
638:22).

   This secret nature of the church came to light when Herod learned of
one born who was called "King of the Jews." Unable to find the Lord by
craft or quiet investigation, Herod stunned the people by ordering
wholesale slaughter of the infants in the district around Bethlehem.
This signifies the open destruction of all spiritual truths and goods
yet remaining in the Church. It marks the complete destruction of
innocence. Since the church had come into such a state it could no
longer serve to lead man to heaven or the Lord. It had destroyed its
spiritual heritage. So the Writings teach that "at the time just before
[the Lord's] coming there was no Divine truth in ultimates with men in
the world, and none whatever in the church which was with the Jewish
nation, that had not been falsified and perverted" (AE 726: 7). Also,
we are taught that in the human race at that time "no celestial and
spiritual, or even natural good any longer remained" (AC 2854).

   The children at Bethlehem had been slain, but in place of them a
Child was born Whose name was to be called "Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace" (Is. 9: 6). This was God incarnate; the Lord
Himself bringing to man Divine truth and good in His own Divine Human.

   The coming of the Lord changed the direction of religious life. The
Lord was not to be found in Jerusalem and what it represented. He was
not present in the selfishness and evil that ruled in men's hearts.
Therefore, when they had found Him in Bethlehem, they did not return to
Jerusalem. They went a new direction. This signifies how our vision of
the Lord gives us the ability to choose another way. We can be inspired
by the Lord not to return to ways of life that are destructive and
defeating but to find, instead, new ways that lead to genuine spiritual
happiness. This the Lord Himself taught when He said, "I am the Way,
the Truth, and the Life: no one comes to the Father except through Me."
(Jn. 14: 6).

   There has always been some way for man to approach the Lord. Our
life and salvation have depended upon it. The visit of the Wise men
marks an essential change in the way.

   To understand the change that is here described, we must know that
life inflows. Life inflows through three degrees from the Lord into
man. When there is an uninterrupted flow and a reception on each degree
then all is well. Such was the state of man in Most Ancient times. Life
flowed from the Lord and was received as love or good in the highest
degree. From here it was passed on as truth in the second degree, and
finally, both good and truth were united in uses in the third, or
natural, degree of life.

   These degrees or life, or their reception, were like treasures which
God gave man. As man opened his mind to them, his life thrilled with
the delight on each plane or degree. He responded happily to celestial
love, spiritual love, and natural love; to good, truth, and uses of
life. These treasures enriched him and brought him into association
with the heavens.

   This sequence of degrees is pictured in those treasure which the
Wise men opened and presented to the Lord: the gold, frankincense, and
myrrh. Here, the meaning is prophetic as well as reminiscent, for the
Lord would open each of these degrees in His Human, providing a full
reception of the Divine from within into His Divine Human.

   But man, at the Fall, had perverted the reception of the inmost of
all degrees, the celestial. This was the more serious in its
consequences to man because the lower degrees depended for their source
of life upon the celestial. When the celestial degree was closed, then
neither could the spiritual and natural degrees receive life from the
Lord.

   For this reason, the Lord made a new approach to man through the
Word. As good was no longer received from heaven, He now approached the
second, or spiritual, degree of the mind through the truth of the Word.
By means of the Word, He presented and preserved the knowledge of
spiritual things. Through these teachings the natural degree could be
held in its order. Thus man's natural life still could be
"spiritualized" or influenced by spiritual truth through not by good
itself.

   Still the decline of the race continued, even until the
representative truths of the Word had been falsified and perverted. Man
lost his ability to receive anything from the Lord either of good or of
truth. His natural life was about to be cut off entirely from anything
spiritual. This threatened to make man nothing but an animal, or even
worse than an animal. Everything human with him was threatened with
extinction.

   There remained but one way for the Lord to approach--directly, on
the natural plane. That man might be saved, then, the Lord came to
earth. He as it were by-passed the degrees which had failed in man and
built them anew into His Divine Natural. When this was done, it was
possible for man to approach the Lord's Divine Human from without and
seek there that Divine spiritual and celestial life from which he had
been cut off.

   This change is described in the Heavenly Doctrine: "Before the Lord
came into the world the Divine Itself flowed into the whole heaven;
and...through this influx...there was brought forth the light which was
in the heavens, and thereby wisdom and intelligence. But after the
human race had removed itself from the good of love and charity, that
light could no longer be produced through heaven, nor, consequently,
the wisdom and intelligence that would penetrate down to the human
race. For this cause, from the necessity of their being saved, the Lord
came into the world, and made the Human in Himself Divine, in order
that as to His Divine Human He might become the Divine Light, and might
thus illuminate the universal heaven and the universal world" (AC 4l80).

   We are taught also that by the Lord's coming to the world and by the
uniting in Himself of the Divine to the Human "it became possible for
salvation to reach the human race, in which no celestial and spiritual,
or even natural good any longer remained" (AC 2854). The state of the
church was completely changed "for in the world He put on the Divine
Natural, in which He is present with men" (SS 99).

   There is an application to our lives of the account of the Wise
men's journeys. We too, if we are wise, will seek the Lord. And when we
find Him we can learn to change our ways. He can give us new direction.
We can turn aside from the natural inclinations that have ruled our
mind, shunning Herod, because we would serve the Lord instead. The Lord
is the new King we have chosen to rule in our life. This is the result
of His advent.

   Before His birth, we could have no clear idea of spiritual values or
eternal purposes. Nothing could prevent us from moving in directions of
self interest or worldly success for its own sake. By His birth, we
have been given a revelation of new and deeper values and of spiritual
purpose in all that we do. We acknowledge this as we sing the words of
Scripture: "Thou wilt show me the path of life..." (Ps. 16: 11). This
is what we long for in our prayer: "Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me
Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of
my salvation..." (Ps. 25: 4f).

   Each day we can come to seek the Lord in the teachings of His Word
and, finding Him, we can be led forth in a new spiritual direction.
Each day we can turn our backs on one more Herod-like aspect of our
character; one more jealousy, one more act of dominion, and place
ourselves instead under the rule of the Prince of Peace.

   The journey of the Wise men from the East was not only a journey of
distance, but a journey of time. By the Wise men is represented that
Ancient Church in which the knowledge of the Lord once flourished. This
knowledge had faded so as to be almost forgotten in the world. Yet some
glimmering of it remained: as it were, a star in the distance. Now,
centuries after the prophecy, a star led the Wise men to the source of
light itself. What was promised in ancient time came to pass.

   The parallel to this can be seen in the life of the individual. The
child's spiritual preparation reviews the spiritual history of the
churches. As an infant, we are given those delights from heaven which
the Heavenly Doctrine calls "remains." These are a kind of inflowing
celestial life that nourishes our whole life. In childhood, we are
instructed in knowledges representative of the Lord drawn from the
literal sense of the Word. These are the essential background of our
later spiritual development and bring us association with the heavens.
Such knowledges, however, do not fully satisfy the states of the mature
mind. We must come to see the Lord for ourselves as He is revealed in
His Divine Human. Only then will we be able to see spiritual truths in
a natural way and thus understand our faith. The religious instruction
of childhood has served to keep us in the thought of the Lord but adult
life calls for a new kind of instruction and faith. We find this faith
in the vision of the Lord Himself as He has revealed Himself in His
first and second advents.

   Let us consider one final thought. It is notable that the Wise men
returned to their own country. A "country" or "kingdom" in the Word
refers to a church or state of the church. The Wise men had come from a
true church. Having found the Lord, they returned again to its true
principles. But they returned by a new way. Truths they had seen only
representatively or obscurely, now were seen in clarity and rational
light.

   So must we all return to a truly spiritual life. When we have seen
the Lord and our faith has been strengthened by a new vision of His
Divinity, we may not be content simply to glorify and praise God, but
we must apply our faith in a new life of spiritual purpose. Turning our
backs on the self-love of Herod at Jerusalem, we should return to the
East, that is, back to a heavenly life. As we live the life according
to those principles which the Lord Himself has set before us, we
approach nearer to Him in the spiritual "East" and nearer to the light
of His wisdom. Our new-found faith must be applied as we follow the
Lord day by day with the humble prayer: "Show me Your ways, O Lord;
teach me Your paths.... The humble He guides in justice, and the humble
He teaches His way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to
such as keep His covenant and His testimonies" (Ps. 25: 4-5, 9-10).
Amen.