This week the stars aligned. Well actually, NASA described it this way. “Jupiter and Saturn aligned in the night sky on Dec. 21 in an event astronomers call the “great conjunction” — also referred to as the “Christmas Star” — marking the planets’ closest encounter in nearly 400 years. https://apple.news/AHBOEehUORSyRWvSNsB9wBQ There are many that say this is what the Three Wise Men followed when seeking to worship Jesus after He was born. I was struck by the fact that all around the world people were looking upward to catch this amazing phenomenon. What a wonderful picture analogy of the Advent season where we wait expectantly to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Like us seeing the great conjunction, the Israelites waited hundreds of years to welcome a Messiah who Isaiah prophesied about 700 years before his birth. The difference of course is in a matter of days Jupiter and Saturn are no longer visible whereas the world has never been the same since “unto us a child was born whose name is Jesus, Wonderful counselor, our Immanuel.” Isaiah 9:6
The second similarity that the great conjunction brought to mind is that we are all waiting for Covid19 to release its wretched grip on our lives making it so difficult to be with the ones we love. Like the planets, we look to the availability of the vaccine to be made so all we will be well and life as we imagine it will get back to normal. It certainly feels like the Christmas carol, “a star, a start dancing in the night” that provides us some glimmer of hope that this soon could be over. As I thought about this I happened upon the Season 3 The Crown episode where Prince Phillip watches every moment of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins landing on the moon.https://youtu.be/qLebb96VHJM It is again a picture of looking up at the moon and being amazed at the courage it took to achieve this heroic accomplishment. The Prince was astounded that the astronauts were more interested in Buckingham Castle and what his life of royalty was like than landing on the moon. So often, we think what others have done or are doing is much more important or significant than ours. It can lead to discouragement as we fall into the lie that our life doesn’t measure up to others.
Christmas speaks truth to that lie. Missionary, Doug Coppage, sums it up well in a recent letter to a friend. “My hope does not depend on other people, no matter how religious or corrupt they may be. My hope rests in Jesus alone, and he did a very, very good job of overcoming darkness, despair, death, and every other curse of human life. God did all this through Jesus for us – and for me! This is God’s Christmas lesson for me this year.”
This Christmas, may the eyes of your heart be enlightened, that you may have a deeper “Christmas star” understanding of what it means to love God and to love others. Only then can we receive the best gift God offers Us; His unique divinity, His grace and truth, His indescribable peace. May it make you “Thankful in all Things”
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