The Tension of a De-centered Self !

There is a tension in being one centered in a Biblical worldview. It is the tension that exists between the self and the Messianic action. The Messianic action. What is a messianic action ? For the individual disciple of Jesus it is summed up in Mark 8:34, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves…” I love what Karl Barth has to say about movement away from self. He says, “To follow Jesus means to go beyond oneself in a specific action & attitude & therefore to turn one’s back upon oneself – to leave oneself behind”. Barth argues that this movement “can never be a question of a routine continuation or repetition of our customary practise… it always involves the decision of a new day”. The Messianic action says that disciples are shaped & formed by continuous concrete actions that deny the self in their move towards the other.
 
Sometimes I am overwhelmed, even frozen by the reality of reality. There is an exquisite complexity to it that threatens annihilation in the mere contemplation of it. Yet the call of Jesus is call to move, to step & to step and to step again. Repeatedly in the Gospels Jesus’ teaching is a call & a command not to grow comfortable & content & static in our own petty kingdoms but to be sensitive to those who inhabit the margins and to be ‘Jesus’ in those places.
 
This movement away from the self - means we are like pilgrim people freed from the attachment & pursuit of possessions, we are freed from the pursuit of social status & the absolute of family ties. It means we are like wanderers who embrace the path of weakness, resisting the use of force even towards our enemies. Ours is a call to a simple yet purposeful piety filled with integrity – almost transparent and definitely low key in its practice.
 
I was reading a Christmas story to the kids before Christmas. It was the story of a comet that journeys from a way out there in deep space. It is difficult voyage past stars and the gravitational pull of the planets. Eventually the comet passes near the earth where it becomes a sign that guides the wise men to the place where the babe, Jesus has been born. It occurred to me that this orientation & sensitivity towards the edges is profoundly present even in the beginning of the Gospel narrative. This is an attentiveness, a sensitivity born of those familiar with the Messianic action.
 
Yet I have a question, “Why does it take outsiders, marginal people like the wise men & the shepherds to identify who is the babe born in Bethlehem ?