Some years ago in the cartoon "Peanuts" Charlie Brown commented to Lucy, "Someone has said that we should live each day as if it were the last day of our life."

"AAUGH!" cries Lucy. "This is the last day! This is it!" She dashes away screaming, "I only have 24 hours left! Help me! Help me! This is the last day!"

Charlie Brown, left alone, muses, "Some philosophies aren't for all people."

The reality is that we have entered 2007 not knowing specifically what it will hold will for us. Yet we enter 2007 knowing that it will hold both successes and failures, times of trial and disappointment and also times of joy. Through this coming year we know that as we experience those feelings, different people will put them in the context of different philosophies. Some people will take disappointment in stride, while other people will be devastated by it. Some people will be thrilled by brief moments of success, while others will be disappointed that they didn't have more. Through it all, the challenge for each of us will be the same as it has always been - to experience and to live this coming year in the context of our faith.

That's the same challenge that the Israelites experienced back when they left Egypt at the time of the Exodus. It was certainly a difficult time for them. They were uprooting themselves from their homes, from a way of life which was not good, but was all that they had known. They were leaving this behind to follow Moses, a new leader whom they did not know well. They were leaving to a life of uncertainty and a path of faith.

We're told that God knew the hesitancy that was in the mind of the Israelite people, and so instead of leading them along the road up the coast - by far the easiest route, they were led on a roundabout way through the desert, so that it would be much harder for them to change their minds and return to Egypt. They were after all being uprooted. Instead of being settled in homes, they were camping along the way, dependent on God to provide for even their most basic needs like food and water.

The only sign that the Israelite people had that they were on the right path was that God was in front of them, guiding them in the form of a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.

The journey of faith that they traveled is not all that different from the one that the wise men traveled in the days when Jesus was born. We know very little about those men who studied the stars and came to worship Jesus. Their number has usually been stated as three, probably because they brought three gifts, but the gospel really tells us nothing about their number. It only says, "some men who studied the stars". You've probably heard some of the legends that even give them names, but the truth is that we know only what the gospel tells us, and that is very little indeed.

In that time it was typical for astrologers and those who studied the stars to travel freely around the Mediterranean world. They would find welcome audiences in the royal courts, the market places, and just about anywhere they might choose to go. Kings and other prominent people freely consulted magi - a priestly caste of those who studied the stars. King Herod was constantly concerned with real or imagined usurpers to his throne, and so the news of magi coming to seek a king would guarantee his wanting to see them.

We're told that those who came to see the baby Jesus brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Myrrh was traditionally used at the anointing of a king, and so on the one hand the gift of myrrh can be seen as an acknowledgment of Christ's kingship, a tribute to the messiah from unnamed people. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were also part of the common stock-in-trade of magi. If these gifts are looked at in that context, as the tools of their trade, they have the connotation that the magi were surrendering the tools of their trade to turn their lives in a new direction.

What is clear to us is that these kings, these magi, followed a star on a long a difficult journey, because of their faith. Travel was never easy back then. It was always difficult and dangerous, and their journey was no exception. Yet they undertook it in faith, to follow a star - a concept that we don't even understand (who among us knows how you follow a star?). Yet they kept going. They persisted even when the star disappeared from the sky. They believed that a Messiah had been born, that their journey was not in vain, and that they must continue to find Him, and find Him they did.

Now I suspect that most of us hear about the wise men and think "that's a wonderful story, but what does it have to do with me?" And we could say the same thing about the Exodus that the Israelite people undertook. These are great stories, great stories of faith, faith which led people to change the direction of their lives, to undertake difficult tasks, to bear hardship, and to live knowing that they were utterly dependent upon God.

I share these stories not just because they are wonderful stories, although they are. I share these stories not just because they are filled with inspiration, although they are. I share these stories with you today because they speak to us as we journey into 2007.

You see, we too are being challenged to follow the star. By that I mean that we don't know what this coming year will bring. We have some guesses, we have some hopes and desires, but none of us knows what today will bring, much less the coming year. It is a journey that we have not yet traveled, and we can travel it in different ways.

We can be tentative and half-hearted, always afraid of what lies ahead, wishing that we could turn back and relive the past instead of moving ahead through the present. We can be self-centered, only concerned about what we experience and what we want. Or we can travel a journey of faith, walking into the new year trusting in God to walk with us, through whatever lies ahead. We can travel as though we are following a star - a star filled with wonderful gifts from God, gifts of faith, hope, and love, a star which calls us to be God's faithful people.

It's not a star that promises that our journey will be easy, that everything will work out as we want, or even that it won't seem to disappear at times, and that we'll get lost along the way. All of those things will probably happen to us - just as they happened to the wise men.

The promise of the star is that when we follow in faith, seeking to live each day as God wants us to live, we will know that we are not alone, for God will be there with us, each and every day along the way. That is the one certainty as we enter this new year - that God will be with us throughout our journey. May we walk into this new year confident in the knowledge that God walks with us, calling us onward and guiding us along the path of faith!

Amen.