Friday, January 06, 2006

Epiphany: "Guide us to thy perfect light"

Why yes, this one IS an article I wrote for the church newsletter. I'm all about intellectual recycling. ;-) So in honor of Epiphany, the Feast of the Wise Men, here you go.

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When the wise men had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. – Matthew 2:9-11

In those ancient days when Jesus was born, astrology was not the minor amusement it has become now. It wasn’t some vague prediction about a person’s day, read idly from the morning news, meant to apply to every single person born within the period ruled by a particular constellation. Rather it was a science of great precision and an art of great significance. And in those days, the scholars of the east had raised astrology to previously unknown levels of importance and exactness. The movements of the stars were seen as signs and portents of the events on the earth below.

So imagine the surprise of these learned scholars, these wise men of the east, when the great star of the nativity appeared to their west. To a civilization such as these men came from—Persia, maybe, or India—the lands to the west were considered barbaric. Judea was simply a backwater province of Rome. In modern terms, it would be as if some New York intellectuals suddenly received a sign that the savior of the world had been born in some small town in Alabama or West Virginia: more than a little difficult to believe!

Yet in the belief of the wise men, the stars did not and could not lie. The greatest of kings had been born, according to all the portents, and his star lay in the west. So they set out, traveling far from home on a cold road full of dangers, following wisdom’s pure light in the form of that star.

We know nothing about these men, really; we don’t know how many of them there were, from what land they came, or truly even when they reached Jesus. Popular imagery has them appearing twelve days after the miraculous birth, yet some scholars believe they may not have reached Judea until Jesus was two years old. I find myself wondering if, with all their wisdom and knowledge, they truly understood the type of king they sought.

Surely they must have realized that this was no ordinary king through simple observation; neither a stable nor a carpenter’s home are the sort of place one expects to find a young king. I can imagine them standing outside the shabby building, arguing, checking their maps and star charts: “It’s right here, I tell you!” “But this can’t be it!” “We should have asked directions at Jericho!”

But did they think as so many of the Jews thought later, that Jesus would be the one to rise up and lead a defeat against the Romans, an earthly Messiah who would become an earthly king? Or did they, with the star’s light guiding them, realize that the kingdom this child would rule would be instead a heavenly one? When they reached the end of the road and knelt in homage before the child, surely they must have realized that he was not what they had expected.

So it may be for all of us who follow the star’s road; we know that our king waits for us at the end and that the Holy Spirit guides our journey. Yet while we are limited by our human perspectives, we can never completely understand that perfect love which we will find when we reach the end. Still we go on, calling out to others to see the star and join us on the road, praying that the light of God’s star will illumine us all with wisdom enough to accept that love as the truth and gift it is.

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