Matthew 2:1-11
1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. 2 They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.”
3 When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him. 4 He gathered all the chief priests and the legal experts and asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote:
6 You, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah,
because from you will come one who governs,
who will shepherd my people Israel.”[a]
7 Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.” 9 When they heard the king, they went; and look, the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stood over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. 11 They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. Falling to their knees, they honored him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (CEB)
The routine would never change for most navigationally-challenged people—first comes the confused looks and the furrowed brows. Then comes the muttering to yourself, and the abrupt u-turns. Finally, there came the pulling off to the side of the road to consult a giant fold-out map the size of your entire body. Then, if you were the sensible type, you might actually go to someone else to ask for directions when you became so very, very, lost. Then, there was introduced a highly critical, bordering on obsequious, word into the litany of getting lost when you drove somewhere—a robotic, slightly British voice, droning over and over and over again, “Recalculating!”
As much as a boon as the GPS device has been for navigationally-challenged drivers, believe me when I say it has been of an equal boon to us preachers, whether directionally-impaired or not, because of all of the metaphors we could draw out from the image of a person going exactly where a computer told them to, doing exactly what an external voice instructed them to. There are more than a few sermons in there, yet the most well-read story of navigation, of journeying to worship, in the entirety of scripture is one of men who have no robotic instructor, no computerized Yoda telling them to turn right here they must. They are, at best, relying on the stars and heavens to find their way, and at worst, were already terribly lost in the deserts of ancient Israel before being shown the way by the Star of Bethlehem.
Point blank, there is no natural reason for the star’s presence. Astronomy is a mathematical science, and so astronomers can tell us with mathematical certainty that stars do not move north by southwest—the direction from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, which would be the direction of the wise men traveling from Herod’s palace to Joseph’s home. Astronomers can tell us that there was no supernova, no comet, no conjunction of stars, no conjunction of planets—all of which is a moot point, because the Greek word for star which Matthew uses in chapter 2 denotes singularity—a single star, and certainly not a planet. And that is as it should be. Rather than being able to attribute God’s signs and wonders to chance or coincidence, this star was, and always will be, meant to represent God’s own guidance, the guidance that, as New Testament scholar Rudolf Schnakenburg writes, “bestows upon wayfarers the fulfillment of their longing and occasions their exceedingly great rejoicing.”
In this way, the magi take over in Matthew the role that the shepherds held in Luke—to bear witness to the birth of the Christ child and to return to their homes rejoicing and witnessing to all that they had seen. The star that moved along with them, the first-century divine equivalent to an annoying GPS device, could only get them so far—it could take the magi to the Christ, but to return home, where their lives had been, where their families were waiting for them, where their world was…we know nothing of this star or any other guiding them home.
We’re in an age—and here I am really going to sound much older than I really am—where people are increasingly content to let machines do their thinking for them. GPS devices tell us where to turn, automated voices tell us how to operate our phone calls to customer service, and what is lost is not simply the human interaction of “the good old days” (whatever those are or were). No, what is also lost is something else, our own ability to trust ourselves. The story of the magi is a story of, at its root, the concept of knowing something—knowing it not just in your head, but in your heart, your gut, your soul. They knew that this was the Messiah. They knew that they had to hide Him from Herod. And they knew how to return home in order to do so. The Greek “epiphaneia” that we get “epiphany” from, it literally means a revelation, a manifestation made clear. Something has been revealed to the wise men, and like Mary and Joseph before them—I’ll use the exact same term as I did on Christmas—they KNOW. And, like Mary and Joseph, like the shepherds, they react the same way—with rejoicing and praise for what they had seen. Nowadays, we simply see a star in the sky—or stars, if the Pacific Northwest clouds aren’t having their way—and that is all we see. The stars cannot guide us to the manger, they cannot guide us to salvation, and if they moved as fast as the star of Bethlehem did, chances are the star is actually an airplane instead. But as an ancient GPS device, the star is infinitely preferable, because even if all we can see is a pinprick of light, what the star has seen, over its millions and millions of years of life, has to be so, so much—the star of Bethlehem, it watched over not just Jesus, but probably over Abraham as well—it watched over Isaac and Jacob, its light could have allowed Moses to navigate the wilderness, or for Joshua to conquer Gibeon. A star that has been around that long, any star, it will have some amazing, truly awe-inspiring stories to tell. And that is what guided the magi—not simply the light of the night sky, but centuries and millennia of religious tradition, of stories of gods and men told and retold, all of which was seen by the light of those very same stars.
But this does not change the reality that they are late to the party compared to the proud parents, compared to the shepherds—Mary and Joseph have known for some time, and the shepherds knew right on the night of the birth—as Luke states, “for born unto you this day, in the City of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Born on this day! Tradition says the magi arrived on the scene twelve days after the birth, but really, we don’t know exactly when, only that it was significantly later. So I always found it interesting that many Nativity scenes and Christmas trees get topped with a star, since the Epiphany story doesn’t happen until well after Christmas, and presumably by then, Mary and Joseph had upgraded their digs from the five-star manger in the innkeeper’s stable (never mind the fact that the manger is only in Luke, and the magi are only in Matthew). So, when you get down to it, the bottom line is that we keep the star because either it looks nice, or we wouldn’t want to kick the magi out of the Nativity scene, so the star stays. Both are totally understandable, but it is the former reason that I’ve been dwelling upon for years now whenever I come across a Nativity scene. Because, when I did, I looked up, and I saw, under the heavens, star by star by star, this star, the one we leave above the Christ child every winter, every year, without fail.
I looked up, and I saw this star. In that starlight, you literally go back into time, seeing what the universe looked like years and decades ago. In that history, you see what all of creation has borne and experienced, the stories of birth and sacrifice, of joy and sorrow, of happiness and hope and grief. You can see a glimpse of both past and presence, of creation birthed and grown.
And so I looked up, and I saw a glimpse of all things. I looked up, and I saw light, and love, and the divine presence…all in a star. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Eric Atcheson
Longview, Washington
January 8, 2012
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