Star Struck Matthew 2:1-12 Westside Fellowship CRC; 8 January 2017 Rev. Heidi S. De Jonge There s something mesmerizing about stars from Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to Star Wars and Star Trek to Dancing with the Stars, we have a fascination with literal and metaphorical stars. They re beautiful and variable and bright, when you get far enough away from city lights. And because we are meaning making creatures seeking understanding and seeking communication and connection it is not surprising to me that many look for communication and meaning and signs in the stars. Some of you began reading the Bible from cover to cover this week, and if you did, you didn t have to read very far before stars were mentioned. On the fourth day of creation, God made the lights to govern the times and the seasons and to separate the light from the darkness. The sun. The moon. And the stars. And the rest of Scripture tags back to that moment in the beginning. One psalmist imagines God to have woven the skies with his fingers when I consider the heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have set in place (Psalm 8:3). Another sees the stars almost like God s frosty breath in winter air: By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth (Psalm 33:6). Still another sees the relationship between God and the stars as like unto the relationship between Adam and the animals: He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name (Psalm 147:4, see also Isaiah 40:26). God himself talks about stars. When he talked about multiplying people, he made promises about their numbers, comparing them to grains of sand and to the stars in the sky. (How many grains of sand are there in the world? Seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion. And how
many stars in the observable universe? 70 thousand million, million, million. WOW. But you ll find the same number of molecules in just 10 drops of water. So next time I look up at the sky at all those stars, I will be impressed, of course, by the great numbers that are out there. But I will remind myself that at the other end of the scale, in the nooks and crannies of the physical world, in the teeniest of places, there are equally vast numbers of teenier things. //We are surrounded by vastness, high and low, and either way, as Blatner's book says, we "can't handle the biggitude." 1 ) God also speaks of the stars like a choir, when he questions Job from out of the storm: Where were you when I laid the earth s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7) Frosty breath, woven silk, shining entities with names and voices. It is no wonder that God s people were tempted to worship the stars. This, however, was not the way it was supposed to be. In Deuteronomy 4, God says not to make an idol fashioned after any created thing animals or people or birds and God also says not to worship the stars: And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars all the heavenly array do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven (Deut 4:19). But, God s people did not listen. Many of the kings worshiped the stars. Both kings of Israel and kings of Judah. Manasseh, King of Judah, built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem I will put my Name. 5 In the two courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. 6 He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced divination, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger (2 Kings 21:4-6). In Jeremiah 8, a picture is painted of the punishment of the kings who worshiped stars their bones would be removed from their graves and laid out bare and exposed to the light of 1 http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/17/161096233/which-is-greater-the-number-ofsand-grains-on-earth-or-stars-in-the-sky
the sun and moon and stars of heaven, which they [had] loved and served and which they [had] followed and consulted and worshiped (Jeremiah 8:2). And then we arrive at Matthew 2, and we are introduced to the Magi (who were not necessarily three in number and not necessarily all men, and really likely not any kind of kings!). These Magi were astrologers. They were those who studied the stars. And though some would say that in their day and age, the work that they did with the stars was more like science and less like worship, they were certainly not the kinds of people one would expect to come hunting for Jesus but hunt they did. They saw the star which led them to Scripture - - - somehow they knew that this star meant a new king for the Jews and that Scripture led them to Jesus. Dale Bruner: God s revelation in creation raises the questions and begins the quest; God s revelation in Scripture gives a preliminary answer and directs the quest toward the goal. Finally, God s revelation in Christ satisfies the quest (59). A significant point about this story in Matthew is that these Magi were outsiders, and God revealed his truth to them. They were outsiders who became insiders. In Matthew, this is how things go: the last become first, the least of the servants become the greatest, the humblest children become the most exalted, the smallest seeds become the largest trees, the outsiders become insiders The first verses of Matthew set it all up for us. In the generations that Matthew lists leading up to Christ, he includes four outsider women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba all of whom were suspect or stained or sinned against or from outside the Israelite fold all outsiders, all of them are part of the story.
These are the ones whom the psalmist wrote about in Psalm 87: The Lord says, "I will record Rahab [a] and Babylon among those who acknowledge me Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush[b] and will say, 'This [c] one was born in Zion.' " Indeed, of Zion it will be said, "This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High himself will establish her." The LORD will write in the register of the peoples: "This one was born in Zion." Matthew seems to be saying the same thing of these outside Magi and of all of the other outsiders who would read these words you are the ones about whom God was speaking through the prophet, Hosea: I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one. [g] 'I will say to those called 'Not my people, [h] ' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.' " With these first verses and first stories in Matthew s gospel, God s huge plan of redemption gets the clarity that was hinted at in the OT. Salvation was not just for the Jews. Salvation was through the Jews, for the Gentiles.2 So, this is one thing we learn from this story of the Magi following the star to Jesus: God brings outsiders inside. But the other thing we learn is this: God uses his creation to bring us to himself. Creation points to the creator. There are some who see this so explicitly. And while it may be fun to see the hand of God in a nebula or his name written on the back of a turtle or his angel in the clouds I do not quite see these signs as the signs of God but rather the whole of creation calls out and draws us toward God. 2 The Magi were outsiders both in race (Gentiles) and in profession (astrology). Yet they were invited to the party. Whatever one thinks of the Magi-as sincere and so literally following their lights or as idolatrous and so captive to superstition one thing is clear: God in great kindness leads them to his Son (Bruner, 55).
Belgic confession article 2 We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: God s eternal power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. All these things are enough to convict humans and to leave them without excuse. Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for God s glory and for our salvation. And these means of communication the word and the world, as I have said before, point us beyond them to Jesus. It bears frequent repeating: the Bible is not about the Bible. Scripture exists to point to JC and to encourage discipleship to him (Bruner, 19). star. In him all things hold together. He is the one to whom everything points. JESUS is the It was Balaam, another magician, who, in Numbers 24, gave the prophecy of the star of Jacob. I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a
scepter will rise out of Israel. And in the Revelation of John, Jesus claims this for himself: I am the Root and Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star. Jesus is the bright Morning star And as is true of all light, it shines brightest in the darkest place Samara is going to help me sing a song about the light of God, the glory of God shining in the darkest place: 3 Out of the depths of silent night, Immanuel, come hear our cry; Our grief is strong, our burdens great; The night is long and hope is faint. You came to set the captives free. A Morning star of Joy and peace. Why does this darkness feel so deep? Lord, help our weary spirits see Glory, glory, glory in the darkest place. Glory, glory, glory let your mercy reign. Out of the depths of silent night, A savior born, a mother s sigh. The darkness trembled at this star A beam of hope for troubled hearts. You came to make your blessings known. And bear our curse of death alone You came to share our suffering So in our sorrow we could sing Glory, glory, glory in the darkest place. Glory, glory, glory let your mercy reign. 3 Glory in the Darkest Place, by Brittany Kauflin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7sufub7bi