Last Sunday we started our Christmas series of talks. I’ve given the series the title ‘NOT YOUR USUAL KING’.
There are lots of ways in which Jesus is NOT your usual king.
Last week we looked at some prophecies in the Old Testament that gave us the when, where and who of Jesus’ birth. No king was as long-awaited as Jesus.
Today, we’ll look at something else that tells us that Jesus is not your usual king. What king is announced by a star?
Stars are rather interesting things. Stars set us wondering. There are lots of songs and hymns which connect stars with wondering. There’s ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I WONDER what you are’. The hymn ‘How great thou art’ has the lines, ‘When I, in awesome WONDER, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made, I SEE THE STARS, I hear the rolling thunder…’ I’m sure we all know the Christmas carol, ‘We three kings of orient are’. The chorus goes, ‘STAR OF WONDER, star of night’. The carol is about the star which appeared at the time of Jesus’ birth. That was certainly a ‘star of wonder’.
Sometimes we think wondering isn’t a very profitable exercise. But, wondering can be a very good thing. We can take Isaac Newton as an example. Newton said that the idea of gravitation came into his mind when he was sitting under some apple trees. He wondered why an apple always descends perpendicularly to the ground and that got him thinking about gravity.
Wondering didn't give Newton an immediate answer. But it doesn’t mean that wondering is a waste of time.
Today, we’re going to wonder about the star that appeared when Jesus was born.
There are all sorts of things we MIGHT wonder about when we think about that star.
We might wonder what the star was.
We might wonder how the magi worked out that a star in the sky showed that a king had been born.
But today, I’m going to wonder about something else. I’m going to wonder how that star – or whatever it was – came to be there at all.
You may think, Simon, what difference does it make how the star got there? But let’s approach this with a spirit of wondering.
Colin Humphreys was a professor at Cambridge University. He wondered about the star and in 1991, he wrote a paper about it. He started by saying there are three broad possibilities.
A: The star never existed. The whole story is a myth.
B: The star was a real astronomical phenomenon.
C: The star was a miracle.
As Christians, we don’t like ‘A’. The Bible says that a star appeared so we believe a star appeared.
Humphreys wondered about ‘B’. Could the star have been a real astronomical phenomenon? He decided that the only astronomical phenomenon which fits the facts is that the star was a comet. In 2015, another academic, Colin Nicholl, wrote a book about the star. He also said the star could only have been a comet. So, let’s assume for the moment that Humphreys and Nicholl are right. If the star was a real astronomical phenomenon, it was probably a comet.
Chinese astronomers record seeing a comet, or at least, it sounds like a comet, in 5 B.C. That’s around the date we believe Jesus was born. So that supports this idea.
It doesn’t matter that we haven’t seen this comet again. Some comets take millions of years to orbit the sun. A comet called Comet Leonard will be visible over the next few weeks. But this comet hasn’t been near the earth for 70,000 years. Astronomers think that after it comes by this time it will be ejected from the solar system and never be seen on earth again. So if it was a comet which the magi saw, it could have been a comet like Comet Leonard and the fact that it isn't a regular visitor doesn't mean that the theory is wrong.
But this account of things isn't very appealing or persuasive. It isn't appealing because random events aren’t evidence of something. If the appearance of the star was simply a normal astronomical phenomenon then it isn’t evidence of anything. But for two millennia, Christians have seen the star as part of the evidence that Jesus was the promised king.
This account of things isn't very persuasive either. It's very convenient that this comet arrives at just the right time and place to signal that a king had been born. We might wonder if this is miraculous. But not only did the comet appear at the right time. From a distance of perhaps 10 or 20 million miles it guided the magi to Bethlehem and came to rest over the place where the child was. That seems very remarkable! One might wonder if that was also miraculous. But we’re keeping the miraculous for the next possibility.
Let’s move on to ‘C’. Could the appearance of the star have really been a miracle?
Let’s wonder about that.
If the star was a miracle, what kind of miracle could it have been? How could a star miraculously appear? It sounds like a Sunday School question. You want to put your hand up and say, ‘God made the star appear!’ That’s certainly possible. Stars are big but no doubt, God could make a star appear.
But is there any other possibility? Could nature itself cause a star to appear?!
You are probably thinking, ‘Simon, this wondering is getting out of hand. Nature is inanimate. It isn’t alive. It doesn’t feel anything. It can’t DO anything!’
But actually, scripture gives us a different picture.
Let me give you a few examples. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve eat the fruit God had forbidden them to eat. What happens to nature? It’s cursed. There’s a connection between humankind and nature.
In Genesis 4, Cain kills Abel. God tells Cain:
“What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” [Genesis 4:10-11].
Nature can’t DO anything, we think. And yet here, Abel’s blood is speaking, and the ground opens its mouth. I’m sure you’re thinking, it’s just a figure of speech.
Isaiah anticipates the fall of Babylon. The Babylonians have been busy cutting down trees – and the trees don’t like it. So Isaiah writes:
“The cypresses rejoice at you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ‘Since you were laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us’” [Isaiah 14:8].
Isaiah portrays the trees as having feelings. They’re rejoicing! Later on Isaiah wrote:
“For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” [Isaiah 55:12].
Are all of these just figures of speech?
When Jesus was crucified, what happened? Darkness came over the land. That wasn’t a figure of speech.
What caused the darkness? Either God turned off the light or nature itself responded to what it was witnessing. Which was it?
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, his disciples made a lot of noise and the Pharisees asked Jesus to rebuke them. Jesus answered,
“I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” [Luke 19:40].
Jesus is saying that the stones which Jerusalem was built from were aware that the King of Kings had arrived and were capable of responding! Wow! Nature itself can respond to Jesus!
Over and over in scripture we find this picture repeated. The created world responds to spiritual events WITHOUT GOD DIRECTLY DOING ANYTHING. The world of nature gets ill if humankind sins. It thrives if humankind is righteous.
So, what do we think? If the star WAS a miracle, did God make the star appear? Or did nature itself cause a star to appear?
I don’t know the answer. But the universe certainly had cause to respond when Jesus was born.
Stars are big. They aren’t the biggest things in the universe. There are black holes which are millions of times heavier than the heaviest known stars. But stars are more useful as signs!
Stars are big. They’re mind-blowingly far away. And there are an extraordinary number of them. There are thought to be 200 billion trillion stars in the universe. That’s two with 17 zeroes after it.
The Bible tells us that the entire universe was created by God and Genesis 1 specifically includes the stars. Not only did God create the stars, Psalm 147 tells us that God has given them names! That's a lot of names! Are you starting to think that God is totally awesome? Even more awesome than you thought?!
Let’s take it further. Genesis 1 tells us that God made the stars. But it isn’t the case that God the Father made the stars and Jesus just watched. John starts off his gospel as follows:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, AND WITHOUT HIM WAS NOT ANY THING MADE THAT WAS MADE” [John 1:1-3, ESV].
Nothing was made without Jesus. That includes the stars.
Let me conclude.
Perhaps what the magi saw was a random event. It was simply the case that a comet had come close to the earth from the most distant parts of the solar system.
But perhaps, what the magi saw wasn’t a random event. Perhaps, as Jesus entered the universe he had made, the universe sensed it and acknowledged its creator and king.
People sometimes say that the story of the magi visiting Jesus shows us that the gospel reached beyond the nation of Israel to the Gentiles. I think it shows us a lot more than that! It shows us that Jesus’ coming affected the most distant galaxies.
It also shows us that the universe itself would help Christ in his work. The magi needed a hand finding the new-born king? The universe helped. A star appeared and pointed them to Christ, to the chief of all stars, the ultimate light in the darkness.
When the magi found Jesus, they worshipped him and offered him gifts. As we reflect on who this Jesus is, whom we call Lord, surely that must be our response too.
He is not your usual king, not one little bit.
BLESSING
Lord Jesus, may we recognize you as the stars in the night sky did. And may we worship you and offer you our gifts as the magi did.
Amen
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 5th December 2021
