Skip to main content

Tonight

             After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, 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.” (Matthew 2:1-2)

You have probably heard that tonight, just after sunset,  you’ll be able to look to the south west and see the star that led the wise men to Jerusalem and from there to Bethlehem. Jupiter and Saturn are supposed to seem to meet in the sky. If you are hoping to see the sort of star you see on Christmas cards, I strongly suspect that you’re going to be disappointed. The light from the two together isn’t likely to be thousands of times as bright as they are normally. It isn’t going to dominate the night sky, and I don’t think it dominated the sky back around 2 BC. The wise men from the east followed it. Most of the population of the world missed it completely.

And the star didn’t lead them to the right place. They went to Herod in Jerusalem and asked about the baby. Herod’s scholars looked it up and sent them to Bethlehem. Herod told the wise men to find the baby and report back. If the star had led them to the house, Herod’s folks could have found the house, too.

And, yes, the Bible says “house.” The wise men didn’t arrive the same night as the shepherds. It was probably a year or two later. They didn’t go to the stable. And the stable probably wasn’t in a barn. It was probably in a cave. Even if it was a constructed shelter, it wasn’t pretty.

And I like that. It’s comforting, and reminds me of one of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes:

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

We look for the spectacular. God imbues what we snub, exploit, and ignore with glory. I would love for the “star of Bethlehem” tonight to be miraculous, bright and spectacular. But I suspect most of us will say, “Is that all?” We want the stable to be filled with miraculous light, and for the animals to speak, and all that stuff we grew up with. But I suspect most of us would be disappointed there, too.

And the reason I am so fond of the boring normalcy of these things? It’s because if the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, as boring as that’s likely to be, can inspire wise men to travel hundreds (thousands?) of miles to seek the king, and if the boring little cave littered with sheep, cow, goat, and donkey dung can become a place of wonder to a group of shepherds, then maybe you and I could be the immortals that Lewis wrote about

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more