Advent Calendar - DAY 17

“His Star”

Tuesday, the fourth week of Advent

 

Today’s Readings:  Numbers 24:17, Matthew 2:1-12, John 1:1-9, John 8:12,                         2 Corinthians 4:4, Revelation 22:16

 

For as long as I can remember, religious leaders, scientists and various other scholars have tried their best to discredit the supernatural origins of the STAR, that the Bible tells us, miraculously led the Wise Men to that one particular house in the little town of Bethlehem where the newly born Jesus and His earthly parents resided some two thousand years ago.

Let me say first of all, that no where in the scriptures is the STAR referred to as “The Star of Bethlehem” or “The Christmas Star.”  In Matthew 2:2 the Wise Men clearly speak of the STAR that they were following as “HIS STAR!”

Explanations for the STAR run the gamut from simply being pious fiction, to planetary conjunctions where certain planets closely align in the skies to look as one object from the earth (as with yesterday’s conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn), to a Heliacal rising where a star briefly becomes visible in the eastern skies after spending a season behind the moon rendering it invisible, to being a comet, meteorite or a supernova.*

I remember Piper’s parents taking the family and I to a presentation of “The Christmas Star” at The Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate Park, during one of the Christmas holiday’s before she and I were married.  It was a marvelous visual and audible show projected across the ceiling in their gorgeous theater, describing their astronomer’s theories of the alignment of celestial bodies that happen around the time of the story of the Biblical birth of the Christ Child.  But I have to admit… that even way back then in the beginning stages of my Christian life and burgeoning Biblical education… it just didn’t sit right with me… nor with my vivacious girlfriend!

I tended to learn early on in my Christian walk, that the Bible tells the story of a supernatural God with Whom the impossible is possible and that we, as believers, have to approach Him with an attitude of faith and trust and the inherent understanding that most things that God does can easily go way beyond the extent or capabilities of our natural intellect.

With that understanding, I find that I would have to agree with the Anglican clergyman and Biblical scholar E.W. Bullinger (1837 – 1913) who, as primary editor of The Companion Bible, wrote in the footnotes as to the explanation of “HIS STAR” as recorded in Matthew 2:2 that: “All questions are settled if we regard this as miraculous”.

I believe that most Christians would relate the STAR that guided the Wise Men to Jesus’ house, to the LIGHT of salvation, instruction, direction and the way of life that the incarnation of Jesus made available to all who would humbly respond to His invitation.  Jesus Himself summed up His entire presence in our world in the book of John, chapter eight verse twelve when He declared, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (KJV)

So… if you haven’t as of yet, you might want to consider responding to His invitation for eternal life with the extra bonus of walking in this life with the direction and covering of The Light of Life, Jesus Christ! (Simply follow His instructions in: Romans 10:8-13) And if you already have, then maybe you might want to let that Light of Life in you shine even brighter during this Christmas season and be a blessing going somewhere to happen in your daily activities of life.

Have a blessed day, let His Light in you shine, keep on expecting God’s best in your life today… and then share it with others who might need a smile, a word of encouragement or a helping hand.

 

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_Bethlehem#:~:text=The%20Star%20of%20Bethlehem%2C%20or%20Christmas%20Star%2C%20appears,who%20has%20been%20born%20King%20of%20the%20Jews%3F