Do you remember doing connect-the-dots puzzles when you were a kid? I remember doing several throughout my scholastic career. In early education, they are often used to help children learn to count. And in later years, they are sure signs that you have a substitute or the teacher doesn’t have a plan of action for the day. Whatever that rationale, I always loved doing them, particularly the more elaborate puzzles. I always found it fascinating that people could put dozens of seemingly random dots across a page in such a specific and well-thought-out order that when one does the work of drawing a line between them it reveals a meaningful picture.
Going back to the earliest recorded histories, we find evidence of people staring up at the night sky, connecting the specks of light off in the distance as if God, Himself had placed pictures there for humanity to discover.
Going back to the earliest recorded histories, we find evidence of people staring up at the night sky, connecting the specks of light off in the distance as if God, Himself had placed pictures there for humanity to discover. Undoubtedly, at some point in your life, you have searched the stars for the more famous constellations. It’s amazing that thousands of years later, people still look up at the stars and find The Big Dipper/Ursa Major, the three stars in the belt of Orion, or the stars that form the stick figure twins of Gemini. It’s amazing how these “dots,” when connected, form meaningful pictures that have been passed down through the ages.
Over the years, “connecting the dots” has moved beyond creating a picture by drawing lines between various points. It has come to describe the process of connecting seemingly disconnected details in order to see the proverbial “big picture.” In the gospel of Matthew, we read the story of some wise folk who connected the dots in the night sky to the promises of God in the past revealing the big picture of what God was doing in the world at that time.
Matthew 2:1-2 reads, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea… Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose and have come to worship him.” We don’t know what exactly the Magi saw rise in the night sky; there are numerous theories that hold merit. Whatever they saw, the Magi were able to connect it to an obscure prophecy by the prophet Balaam found in Numbers 24:17. It reads, “I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near. A Star shall come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.” By connecting these dots, the Magi were able to discern a direction to go in order to see and experience what God was doing. It led them to Jerusalem.
God still desires to reveal Himself to the wise women and men of this world.
It’s worth noting that what they discerned from the stars and the scriptures didn’t immediately provide the whole picture. The dots they had connected led them to Jerusalem, the city where the Judean king lived, where they asked some questions. This led them to connect yet another dot found in the book of Micah. Micah 5:2 reads, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times.” This last dot, along with the guidance of the star, led the Magi to the small town of Bethlehem where they saw Jesus, the Son of God. After connecting all the dots, they were able to clearly see and pay homage to the very Creator of the stars and the source of the Scriptures that had led them on their way.
God continues to provide dots for us to connect. They start in the truth of the miraculous birth of Christ at Christmas, continue on through His death, burial, and resurrection at Easter, and run right into the living of our lives today. Christ the Savior has been born to us and desires to live with, in, and through us. When we take the time to connect the dots He has provided we not only discover a clearer picture of Who He is, but also how He is moving in this world. God still desires to reveal Himself to the wise women and men of this world. Will we join those who continue to connect the dots in order to seek and find Him for ourselves?
