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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

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