OT Lesson: Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm: 72:1-7, 10-14
Epistle: Ephesians 3:1-12
Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12
One of my favorite Television sit-coms of late is The Big Bang Theory, which airs on CBS. The show is about two male Caltech prodigies in their 20s, Leonard and Sheldon. Leonard is an experimental physicist with an IQ of 173, and Sheldon is a theoretical physicist with an IQ of 187. They live across the hall from an attractive blond waitress, named Penny, who predictably enough happens to have show-biz aspirations. Leonard and Sheldon’s ‘geekiness’ and sheer intellect are contrasted with Penny's social skills and common sense. In the very first episode, after they’ve made their introductions, Penny tells Leonard and Sheldon: “I'm a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.” To which Sheldon responds: “Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.”
The Star of Bethlehem, about which we read in our Gospel lesson this evening, continues to baffle both believer and skeptic alike, particularly those who search the ancient records for some indication of an astronomical phenomenon that may have occurred at or around the time of Christ’s birth. Part of the problem is that we don’t really know the year of Christ’s birth, let alone the month or the day. So when the records tell of a supernova or a comet, rather than solving the issue, these records tend to cause more controversy than not. The fact of the matter is that we simply cannot identify what the Star of Bethlehem was to be able to pinpoint the time of Christ’s birth, nor do we know the time of Christ’s birth with enough precision to be able to identify an event or astronomical phenomenon as "the Star of Bethlehem."
That being said, the story of the Star of Bethlehem continues to inspire research down to our very day. In recent times researchers have employed computer models to track down this star based on what we know about Near Eastern astrology (particularly Persian or Zoroastrian understandings). Now, mind you, we don’t really know all that much about ancient astrology, but what we do know is enlightening. The result of this kind of research is that more recent theories tend to be much less extraordinary and luminary than the traditional bright star that we often see perched above the little town of Bethlehem on Christmas cards. The recent trends suggest that the Star of Bethlehem was a quite natural event – e.g. the conjunction of planets with other planets or with important stars, and/or the alignment of planets within certain constellations. These are the kind of “natural” or “ordinary” events that ancient astrologers understood as telling stories of real events here on earth or perceived as omens or as foreshadowing certain events that would take place (much like pop-astrology does today, though today’s astrologers do so with more personal pretense and individual application and much less political pretense and national application).
As such, the planet Jupiter is often a prime suspect for the “Star of David,” particularly as it is the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the sun, moon, and planet Venus). One theory I recently read about, based on computer models, speculates that the conjunction of Jupiter with the star Regulus around the year 3 BC, along with its traverse through the constellation Leo “the Lion” (which often represented the tribe of Judah in ancient times), may have been read by our watchful Magi (a term synonymous with “astrologers”) as indicating an important event – the birth of the “King of the Jews.”
As most people know, the night sky’s constellations are fixed and predictable, as is the sun’s course in the seasons and the phases of the moon. But planets are another matter altogether. Planets tend to “wander,” which is precisely why they are called “planets” (planetes in Greek means “wanderer”). Given that all planets, including the earth, revolve around the sun at different speeds and in different orbits, and given the slant of the earth’s own axis, predicting where any given planet is going to be in the sky at any given time is a tad trickier than predicting the apparent position of the constellations, and sometimes full of surprises as planets tend to wobble on their own axes as well. But the most intriguing thing about planets is that, relative to the earth’s own revolution around the sun, sometimes planets appear to stop in the sky and then to reverse their course – an optical illusion on an astronomical level (but one that was sure to get the attention of ancient astrologers when it happened). And “where” such an event happened, relative to other heavenly bodies (not to mention relative to places on the earth), was seen in the ancient world as significant.
Now certainly educated people of our day will tend to share the views of Sheldon, the Caltech physicist that I told you about earlier. The movement of planets and constellations relative to other planets and stars still is of interest to many an amateur astronomer, but we don’t take such things seriously anymore. The apparent position of plants and the identification of constellations are arbitrary things.
OR ARE THEY? With all of our advances in modern science and technology, could we perhaps have “outsmarted” ourselves?
If there is a lesson here in this Gospel for educated moderns it is that ultimately NOTHING is arbitrary in the will and providence of God. St. Paul tells us in Galatians 4 that “in the fullness of time God brought forth his Son, born of a woman.” The story of our Gospel tells us that every last detail in all of God’s creation was prepared for this precise moment, for this very time and event: the moment that God’s Son entered into this world. Even those objects which we now know to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of light years away from our own small planet, were carefully choreographed by God to perform an elegant cosmic dance in the sky to proclaim the birth of the King of kings and Lord of lords. Our Gospel also tells us that God prepares people, nations and even kings to receive him. These ancient astrologers may seem backward or even naïve to us moderns. But were they really? The fact that they invested their time and money, at great personal sacrifice no doubt, to go on this “fool’s errand” into another country to search for this particular child at this particular time, tells us that they had some distinct advantages over the typical modern person: they were attuned to God’s created order, knowledgeable of its patterns, sensitized to its cosmic resonance, and perfectly comfortable with the notion that the Almighty Creator of the world is intimately involved in all aspects of nature.
I often wonder as our knowledge has increased whether our sense of the divine in the universe has diminished; whether our view of God has become too small. Perhaps people have a hard time believing in God because the God that is presented to them is no better than a magician doing the occasional hat trick. But the God of our Gospel is not the “Great magician” in the sky. He controls all things, even the stars in their courses relative to events here on earth. That is a much grander view of God; and a much more terrifying one. But this view of God must be balanced by the deeds of this God, and his love shown forth to us and to all humankind, in the birth of his Son, Jesus Christ. Once seen in this light, we can see that true greatness – the greatness of God – is not to sought after in marvelous signs or flashy events, but rather in the subtle, gentle, unassuming witness of his constant care for creation, his call of people from every tribe and nation, and his sacrificial love for all of us in the person of his Son.
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