Real Hope: O Come Let Us Adore HimSample

The First Noel

To seek for a King was their intent, and to follow the star wherever it went.

Can you imagine what it would have been like to be among the first people to see Jesus? When the shepherds arrived at His manger, it was straight from their fields after an instruction from an angel. When the kings arrived, they’d been on a long journey of faith. Guided by a star in the night sky, trusting it would lead them to the newborn Saviour, suddenly there He was. God had been faithful to what He’d instructed the shepherds and the kings to do: their obedience and their journeys were worth it.

Listening to The First Noel, these lyrics always stick out to me: ‘To seek for a King was their intent, and to follow the star wherever it went.’ The kings, full of anticipation, knew their goal was to meet Jesus and knew that following the star would be the way to get there.

What if our life’s main intent could be to seek our King? To meet Jesus? Would we diligently follow His lead, trusting that His desire for us to draw near to Him in worship and in prayer would take us there?

Thinking about the moment the shepherds and kings first saw Jesus, I’m struck by the simultaneous emotions they must have felt in that exchange: no doubt loved as Christ emanated the presence of God, awestruck as they stood alongside Him, and bewildered at the privilege they had in being there.

Christmas might only come once a year, but my prayer is that, as we embrace the season with reverence and joy, we consider how our appreciation for Jesus shapes our pursuit of Him outside of December.

Written by LAURA BENNETT