Isaiah 60:1-6 • Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 • Ephesians 3:1-12 • Matthew 2:1-12
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Looking for stars is not something that can happen very easily in the Chicago area. The glow of city lights overwhelm the millions of small little stars that lie hidden in the night sky. But those stars are there, away from the city where there are so many other lights calling for our attention below the sky—the front porch light, the green and red lights on the top of the Willis Tower, and hundreds of billboard lights dotting the highway. If we can only get away and look up, the stars are there.
One of my most glorious star-trekking experiences came during a childhood family vacation out at a ranch in Wyoming. There was so much space out there, with nothing to hold back the wonders of multitudes of stars filling the galaxies of the summer night sky. And I kept hearing family and other guests talk so much about how awe-inspiring these stars were, and I kept wondering why I hadn’t seen them? I had no idea where they were! Usually, about the only time I was out at night was on a short, half-mile walk from the dining hall to our cabin. I would walk with my flashlight, and do my best to not trip, which was hard work. There were so many rocks bulging up out of the dirt road it was almost impossible not to trip on them. One night, making my way back, I happened to be going back with someone to the cabin area, and as we both walked with our flashlights, looking down at the ground, trying to avoid tripping, I mentioned how I had heard about all the stars being so amazing at night, but that I hadn’t really seen them yet. And this person stopped walking and said, “Wait a minute. Turn off your flashlight. Stand still. Now look up.” And it was as if a whole other world had been opened up to me. It was as if God had taken a piece of black paper and punched millions of holes with a safety pin and shined a light behind them. But…I never would have been illuminated by this grandeur, if I hadn’t had that person telling me to stop looking down at my own feet, to stop avoiding the rocks, and to stop shining my own flashlight, so I could look up and see the tremendous light that surrounded me. The stars were beautiful, yes. But they were just as, if not more amazing, as that guide, that wise person, who stood with me there in the dark, and without whom that vision of light would not have been possible.
The three magi, too, are in search of finding and following a star that they have been told is amazingly beautiful, and that will lead to a wonder to behold. But that star on its own is not what they truly seek. It is not possible for them to know the meaning of that star without some guide, some person, someone who can stop them, and who can make them look and see who it is that gives that lights its meaning. That guide, that person for the magi is Christ, who beacons them to stop searching, to end their journey, and to behold this child who has come to bring light not just to them but to the whole world. Christ has come to puncture holes in the darkness, to illuminate the world with God’s abundant life and with God’s mercy for all peoples. Christ has come, in him light has shined, but this light has not just come to illumine us to God’s appearing, but also to be that person who gives the light meaning, who stops us to look around and see the light, and to guide us on our journeys of looking amidst a broken world to find God’s presence.
The hearers of this Gospel story from the evangelist Matthew would have heard and remembered overtones of another guide from their past, another guide who like the light leading the magi to Christ, led God’s people to a new promise. Matthew’s primarily Jewish community would have heard Moses in this story, who like Christ was also a leader and guide under the rule of a wicked ruler, who also escaped to flee a decree murdering infant children, and who also lead God’s people out of slavery to freedom in the promised land through the wilderness by way of a sign. Jesus’ guidance of the magi by a star roots Jesus firmly in the history of Israel as a Moses-figure. Jesus, too, becomes the one in whom to trust to guide us to the light—a light that like the light of the promised land offers his own self as a light of hope for all people.
We too know of guides who have led and brought us to see the light of God in a way we had never seen before. Jesus emerges with credibility for us, too, as a Moses-figure who is rooted firmly in our own history of those who have guided us as we have sought God’s light and illumination amidst the bulging stumbling rocks and hidden pains of our own lives. Jesus comes not just as the star, but as the guiding one, to lead us through the passage from slavery to freedom, from the grip of the sin that controls us, from inequity and violence to the ways of peace and justice. Just as the passage through the wilderness to a new promised land of freedom could not have happened without a guide, Moses, the passage that is shown by the light of a star, that signals a dawn of God’s mercy and forgiveness, cannot happen without our guide, Christ, who guides us, along with the magi, as we seek together to behold this promised light that God has revealed to all.
One of the best modern stories I have seen that tells of this new Exodus, that shows a Moses-figure who does what Christ did in leading people to a new and promised future is the T.V. show Battlestar Galactica, a show that appeared for five seasons in the last decade (now behind us) on the Sci-Fi Channel. Admiral Adama shows guidance not just with his decisions but also in pointing to the light that calls forth hope to those he leads. In this future-time show, Adama leads the fifty thousand people left in the human race in a fleet of space ships after a human-like life-form humans created came back and destroyed the last planet humans lived on. All that’s left of the humans lives in the wilderness of space in search of a long-lost and forgotten planet home called Earth. As the military head of the fleet, Admiral Adama is in search of a place he is not even sure exists. But yet he leads as if it does—because he knows those he guides need a light to guide them. And—he knows that the hope of Earth is not enough. The people need a guide to lead them to that light.
As we with the magi seek the light of Christ, we walk not just the hope of a seeing a starlight with the help a Moses-figure called Christ. We walk with Christ, the light who shines in standing directly with us in our darkness. Christ guides us as we live the ancient Christian practice of discernment—of seeking the light of God’s presence in our individual and collective decisions. As we ask God to guide us—when we are stumbling around in the dark, wondering where this light is that we hear others talking about—as we weigh decisions and ask God to be our guide, whether we feel like we have no options or many in front of us, we as a church call forth this ancient practice of discernment: of intentionally seeking where God’s light is most present and calling forth to us. Christ frees us to walk in the darkness to find which path will illumine us on our way to a right relationship with God, to God’s mercy and love, to the justice and peace of Christ being made known on Earth. As we enter this new calendar year, and we look at the decisions and priorities we will make at home, at school, at work, at United Lutheran…Christ promises to guide us in our discernment—to guide us to himself, to find his ways stopping us in our darkness, to find God’s light stands above us that we can discern our way—for we have been found by God’s light in Christ.
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” (Is 60:1) Amen.
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