The star, I have been think a lot about the star that sits at the top of the Christmas tree, the star that first made its significance to the wise men who first saw it in the west and travelled east to see what great phenomenon it was guiding them towards.
This post is a little later than I had intended, it was meant to be ready and posted by Christmas to keep in with a festive theme and help peak your interest. However it doesn't particularly matter when this is posted because the theme and focus of the post is not about Christmas at all, but about Jesus. If we think about it the wise men (Magi) would have had to see the star months in advance to the birth of Christ if they were to arrive just after He was born, similarly they still would have seen the star for months if the star arrived at the birth of Christ and it took them 2 years to reach our infant Lord (scripture isn't particularly clear on which it was).
However the point remains, that over the distance the Magi (wise men) must have traveled to see Jesus, the star must have been in the night sky for quite sometime. This then puts a great significance on the star and we can see a number of parallels between it and Christ/us. If we think about it, the star is a light shining in the dark sky, it can help you with direction / guidance or simply finding out where you are in the world. We can today measure distance and expanse of the created universe by how far a star is away. A star can support a solar system and our star supports life on this planet.
How many parallels can we see here? Just with Christ we can see that Jesus guides and shows us the way. Sailors used to navigate their way round the world via the stars and the British navy keeps up the practice in case anything happens to their GPS systems, simply because it is easy to get lost in the void of the oceans. This is similar to us, we can easily become lost in the void of life… yet if we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, we will find our way. It's the same when we want to find our true selves, we look to Christ to show us who we are, to illuminate the strengths and weaknesses we have and what gifts have been given. A star will help you plot your point on the earth, the stars in the northern hemisphere are different to the ones in the southern and as the world turns we can see different ones throughout the night. This coupled with looking at our surroundings can help us understand where we are. It's important to know physically and spiritually where we are as this helps our personal growth and also helps the calling Jesus has put on our lives. We often say celebrities are stars and their stars get brighter the more they fulfil their ambitions in their careers, this is the same as us when we fulfil our calling, we discover what it is, where we need to go and do, then each step makes us brighter and brighter.
The ultimate light is Jesus, just like our star (the sun) He sustains life on this planet. All of us feel better in His warm embrace and it has been proven that lower vitamin D levels you have in your system the more depressed you can feel (vitamin D is something we get from sunshine). This shows us the more time we spend away from God, the less happy we are, people describe this as a void and try to fill this with many things that they believe will give them the same results as spending time in the sun… but we all know that there is nothing like a beautiful day in the Son's presence.
As time goes on a science develops, this helps us understand more about stars and our universe, we learn more about how things are made and come together to support the very existence of the universe. It's the same when we study Christianity and learn more about Christ. There is a wonderful talk that Louie Giglio did (talk is called "How great is our God") and I would really recommend you watch it if you haven't seen it already. The talk demonstrates just how big Jesus is, yet just how finite He is too. When we look at stars, we usually think of them as pin pricks of light covering the darkened sky at night, but when you truly get close and see them for what they are you will truly be in awe of the size and power of these things… again, it's hard not to compare this with Christ Jesus, we often tend to think of Him as a simple human being just like us and there is currently 1 of you in a world of 7 billion people, we do think of the intricacies of Christ to as He weaves together our salvation, direction and prosperity (if we allow Him) in our lives. But we forget and here is a snippet of a fact from Louie Giglio's talk… he said that imagine if the earth was the size of a golf ball, that would put the sun in comparison as 15 meters in diameter. This sun is so big that in this ratio you could fit 960,000 earth's inside that sun. Now as Christ is God and He created the Heavens and the earth and everything on it plus everything surrounding it, how big can our God be?
The point here is that the star is an incredible analogy for us and something very poignant and deserves its place in our Christmas festivities as it helps remind us to keep our eyes fixed on Christ and follow Him. Not only that, but as believers we are to be stars for non-believers so they like the travellers of old can navigate themselves towards God. We must remember that for as intimate we can think of Jesus being, like the prominent star in the night sky, He is also big and fierce and as such we must treat Him with the right reverence and respect He deserves, for who doesn't go out on a sunny day without the relevant respect and precautions (by the way you can always tell the ones that don't).
So let's think and reflect the next time we look to the stars or a star in particular, whether in the sky or something you see on earth and truly think just how awesome and wonderful it is, what it led the Magi (wise men) to, what it can lead us to and how we can be stars in the universe of Christ.
Christian Christmas Direction Guidance Jesus Louie Giglio Star Wise Men← Back to Teachings