His Star

Matthew in his birth narrative of Jesus makes much use of a star. He tells how wise men came from the East to Jerusalem, having followed the light of it.

They asked: “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East, and have come to worship him” (Matt. 2:2).

They continued to follow the star beyond Jerusalem.

Matthew 2:9 “After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.”

It was His star, and Jesus was identified by its light. He was a baby with the light of a star in His face.

(1) The Light

Light is one of the best marks of identification for Jesus. Matthew saw the coming of Jesus as the fulfillment of a prophecy by Isaiah.

Matthew 4:16 “the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.””

Luke spoke of His coming as “when the day shall dawn upon us from on high” (Luke 1:78).

The birth of Jesus was like a dawn, like the coming of morning.

Luke also describes the birth of Jesus by saying “the glory of the Lord shone around” (2:9) the shepherds as they kept “watch over their flock by night” (v. 8).

John at the beginning of his Gospel wrote this.

John 1:4 “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

The climatic event of Jesus’ birth, life, and His resurrection, was set within light, the fresh light of early morning. The women who brought spices to anoint His body discovered He had risen at the breaking of the morning. They looked into His empty tomb by the light of dawn.

Jesus said of Himself: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

The Bible expressly uses light to identify Jesus. It is one of the best metaphors to tell what God is like, what He is doing, and His presence in our world. It speaks eloquently of such moral and spiritual forces as, love, truth, goodness, and justice.

The Bible begins with light. The first thing God created was light. God said, “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3), and light broke over a dark, restless, chaos. The Bible ends with light. There is a new city perfectly lighted with no trace of darkness or evil in it. From beginning to end the Bible makes an extensive use of light.

The Bible speaks of the light of God’s countenance and His causing His face to shine upon us. His truth is light, and His Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Isaiah tells us that “the Lord will be your everlasting light” (Isa. 60:20).

There are three bold attempts to define God in the New Testament. God is spirit. God is love. God is light. “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). All three definitions are so simple, and it must be the route of simplicity that leads us to reality.

Isaiah’s simple yet urgent invitation is typical of the spirit of the Bible.

Isaiah 2:5 “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

The Bible says in effect: When you have peeled away layer after layer of things as they appear, you come to the heart of things as they are and you can call it by no better name than light.

Light is the answer to darkness in the moral and spiritual realm just as much as it is in the physical. You can’t cast out darkness with darkness, you cast out darkness with light. Truth is the answer to falsehood, justice is the answer to injustice, love is the answer to hatred, and only gentleness can bind up the wounds that cruelty inflicts.

It is not strange then that Jesus was identified by a star and that we still speak of Him as light.

There is a tradition that says the wise men, who were likely among the most prestigious persons in Persia, combining in themselves the roles of scientist, statesman, and priest, went home, gave away their great wealth, and became preachers of the gospel of the Prince of peace. They felt He was the answer to their darkness.

(2) Focused Light

The star that identified Jesus led somewhere. It was not light that shone everywhere but nowhere in particular. It was light that was focused, that shone somewhere in particular. Where did it shine? Over a thing as tiny and small as a baby. The wise men followed the star and “lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was” (Matt. 2:9).

We are tempted to follow a star with diffused light. We like to believe everything but nothing in particular. Such faith makes no demands on us. We take from it what comfort and meaning it can give, but it puts no yoke on us. And, what is worse, such a faith has no real power. It doesn’t change life and doesn’t make us agents of change.

The sunlight when mildly diffused will warm your hand. But catch it in a concave lens, focus its rays, and it will burn your hand. You can set a piece of paper on fire with such concentrated sunlight. The same is true of faith. If it is to be powerful, it has to be focused. It has to be concentrated.

Jesus was born into a world of many gods and many lords. Paul, speaking of the religious situation of his world and contrasting it with the uniqueness of the Christmas faith wrote: “For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:5–6). The religious situation was a diffused one. You could believe in as many gods as you wanted to. But not so with Christian faith. It was focused on one God and His mighty action in Jesus Christ. Like the star of Christmas, it shone in a face.

The Pantheon in Rome is the best preserved building of the ancient world. It was a great architectural and engineering feat from the beginning and was erected as a temple to all the gods. It was indeed a temple of diffused religious devotion. Several hundred years passed, and the temple to all the gods became a Christian church. It was stripped of all its altars save one, and that one was dedicated to Jesus Christ. The diffused religious situation was transformed to a concentrated devotion centering in Jesus Christ as Lord.

The most ancient confession of Christmas faith was not, “the many gods are lords,” but “Jesus Christ is Lord.” The star had led to Him, and the church has never been able to forget that.

Guiding Light

Jesus Christ, to whom the star led, also leads us somewhere. He leads us in two directions—to God and to our brother. These are the two poles of great religion.

The God to whom Jesus leads us is no cosmic blur. You can almost say He is a God with a face. He is a God of truth, love, and justice, and He demands these of us. There is rigor in the demands of this kind of faith.

Jesus also leads us to our brother. He leads us across all kinds of barriers and all kinds of social proprieties to get to Him. He takes us to where men and women are lonely, rejected, poor, dehumanized, sick, and lost. Follow Him in any of the four Gospels of our New Testament, and He will take you to where people are hurting.

There are those who want Jesus to lead them to God but not to their brother. They want a religion that is essentially personal, spiritual, ethereal, and other-worldly. They want to be lifted above the loneliness, injustices, and brokenness of our world. Such a religion will allow us to live side by side with the inequalities, racism, and exploitations, and never lift a hand to change the situation. Indeed, it will allow us to profit from these inequalities and to share in these injustices in a most respectable sort of way. To those who are satisfied with this kind of religion Jesus says: “It is not enough. Come, let me take you by the hand and lead you to your brother. He is afraid and he is hurting. He needs you.”

On the other hand there are those of us who are willing to be led to our brother but not to God. Personal and spiritual religion turns us off. We had rather spend our time feeding the hungry, healing the sick, defending the weak, and championing the cause of justice in our world. If we are to believe in anything, let it be in humanity. Jesus says to us: “It is not enough. Come, let me take you by the hand and lead you to God. You not only need to serve; you need to worship. You are too weak and frail to be the object of your ultimate trust. You are like a broken reed and cannot stand the weight of heavy faith. You must trust in something and somebody beyond yourself.”

Light in the Darkness

The light of the star that identified Jesus will never go out.

Someone has said that there is not enough darkness in the universe to put out the light of one small candle. It is true. If darkness cannot put out the light of a small candle, how helpless it is to put out the light of a star.

John in his Gospel speaks of the light in Jesus which the darkness has not put out. The Revised Standard Version reads like this: “This light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). The New English Bible says, “The light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never quenched it.”

The light that shone in Jesus still shines on, and the darkness has not been able to overcome it, put it out, or quench it.

Now this does not mean that the light that has been seen in Jesus will never seem to flicker low, indeed, seem to have gone out or have been lost.

The wise men must have lost the star. The star is introduced at the beginning of the story, but as it unfolds Matthew says “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (2:10). But why such an exclamation of joy? It was as if they had lost the star, and greatly rejoiced at finding it again. Obviously, they had lost it by day when it had been eclipsed by the sun. But they may have lost it by night as it dipped beneath some Judean hill. They continued their traveling, however, remembering where they had last seen the star, and they journeyed in the faith that it would appear again.

How often the influence of Jesus seems eclipsed by mighty powers just as the star was eclipsed by the sun. He often seems so weak and the forces pitted against Him so strong.

This was certainly true at the beginning. There was the helpless baby Jesus and King Herod with his legions seeking the child’s life. We see Mary and Joseph fleeing with the child to Egypt. They were so weak in their flight and Herod was so strong in his search. But it wasn’t the way it seemed. It was the baby who was strong, Herod who was weak. Matthew tells us that when Herod was dead, an angel appeared to Joseph in Egypt telling him to take the baby home. Jesus outlived Herod, and His influence has had a way of outliving the powerful, cruel, and tyrannical forces of history.

Or take Good Friday. Jesus seemed so weak, stumbling beneath His cross. Tremendous powers of church and state had joined hands to crush Him. Why the amassing of such power against one so weak? And did anything ever look weaker or more helpless than His limp body on the cross? But then came Easter morning, and then they knew that He who stumbled beneath His cross alone was strong.

How often the forces of propaganda, discrimination, injustice, dehumanization, and war seem so powerful and Jesus so weak. They seem to eclipse Him.

Like a star dipping beneath some Judean hill, how frequently the influence of Jesus seems to get lost behind some high mountain of fear, prejudice, hatred, cruelty, and death.

I felt this kind of thing as a chaplain during World War II. We were on a mission of killing. Our nation, along with its allies, had harnessed great economic and technological power for a mission of destruction and death. We developed a mentality for killing. I remember our commanding officer briefing us for combat and telling us we were to take no prisoners alive. Where was the gentle Jesus with His message of love? Often as I led services of worship it seemed as if Jesus’ star had sunk beneath some Judean hill of hatred and death. But like the wise men traveling on and remembering where they had last seen the star, I remembered the light I had seen and I knew it would appear again.

A young Jewish girl in a Warsaw ghetto managed to escape over the wall and hide in a cave. She died there shortly before the Allied Army came to deliver her. Before she died, she scratched on the wall three things: First, “I believe in the sun even though it is not shining.” Second, “I believe in love, even when feeling it not.” Third, “I believe in God, even when He is silent.”

We are like mariners of the sea guided by the North Star. When the star is hidden by a heavy overcast, we know it is still shining, that the overcast will sooner or later pass, and the star will reappear. In the meantime we keep sailing, remembering the direction where we last saw the star.

So in the darkest hours we keep remembering the light we have seen in Jesus, believing it is more powerful than the overcast which temporarily hides it. We are sure that His light alone is strong and that someday it will completely rout and destroy all the powers of darkness, not leaving behind them a trace of their glory. Then will come the perfectly lighted city with not a shadow of darkness in it.

Walking in the Light

The New Testament assures us that Christ delivers us from the powers of darkness into His marvelous light. There is a fragment of an early Christian hymn in the fifth chapter of Ephesians: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light” (v. 14). We, therefore become children of light. “For you are all sons of light and sons of the day: we are not of the night or darkness” (1 Thess. 5:5).

We are to walk in the light we have seen in Jesus, be reflectors of it, and “declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). We should not forget what Jesus, who confessed that He was the light of the world, said of His followers: “You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14).

For many years I have seen a midnight Christmas Eve worship service televised over one of the national networks. The one this year was particularly meaningful. It originated from the Pine Methodist Church in San Francisco where most of the members are second-and third-generation Japanese-Americans. During the service they acknowledged many times that they had been a pilgrim people, knowing what it is to be discriminated against, rejected, and persecuted. Yet, they confessed that God had been with them in their pilgrimage. Each worshiper had been given a candle. At the close of the service, four people with lighted candles went along the aisles lighting the candle of the person who sat at the end, who, in turn, lighted the candle of the one who sat next to him, and on down the pew until all the candles were lighted. Then the congregation stood, holding high their lighted candles. And the pastor, facing his congregation said: “You are the light of the world.” So they were. And so are we.

Let us pledge ourselves to walking in the light we have seen at Christmas. Let us not forget that the star that shone through the darkness of that first Christmas was His star. Let us walk in confidence, believing that if we are faithful to the light we have today more light will be given tomorrow, more the next day, and more the next, until at last we shall walk into the perfect day.