1st Epiphany 2021, Uses of the Stars

1^st Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12

Tissot

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—
behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is the one born here, King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him."

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born. And they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet: 

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel." 

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, "Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him."

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was. Seeing the star, they were filled with [or, there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy. 

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh. 

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

1st Epiphany

January 10, 2021

Matthew 2:1–12 

"In the beginning,. . . darkness was on the face of the deep. . . and God said, 'Let there be light.' " Thus the very pattern of the world was stamped with one of the primal pairings—light and dark—like day and night, life and death.

It lives on in us as the pattern of our souls, which swing between love and hate, hope and fear, good and evil. Herod represents that dark capacity in all of us, which fears a loss of position, a darkness that instigates our capacity for calculating secretiveness and destructiveness. 

Yet, we also have the Three Wise Kings in us to balance out our inner darkness. They are the soul's capacity to see the starlight of higher wisdom; to be devoted to God's guidance; to willingly acknowledge the necessity of sacrifice.

The wise guidance of the star leads the Kings first to Herod, then to the Christ Child. It prompts the gift of gold.

Their devotion to God's guidance, sent to them also through the words of their warning dream, accompanies the gift of frankincense.

Their willingness to recognize the Child's coming sacrifice prompts the gift of myrrh.

The darkness of fear contends with God's light in all of us. Darkness leads us to destruction. But God's light leads to a great and holy joy. In the words of the poet Max Ehrmann we pray:

Lift up my eyes

from the earth, and let me not

forget the uses of the stars.

….Let me not follow the clamor of

the world, but walk calmly

in my path.*

 

*Max Ehrmann, "A Prayer," in The Desiderata of Happiness