January 06, 2009

Star of Wonder

Giant spiral galaxy, viewed via the Hubble telescope, courtesy of NASA

I know that I have written before about my love of the portion of the Christmas tale describing the journey of the Magi to find and worship the Divine Child Jesus. They followed the miraculous star from...Iraq, Iran...we aren't quite sure.I have my theory that the Magi and certainly there were more than three, were the descendants of the Babylonian astrologers that were spared the horrible death before them because they could not discover or interpret the incredible dream of the King of Babylon, we now know as the vision of Epochs (Daniel chapter 9)

This year I saw a wonderful film on the subject, called The Bethlehem StarAny of you that are science buffs particularly if you are involved with the creation/evolution discussion will find this utterly fascinating. Using modern technology, the stars can be mapped at the time of the Nativity. We can see what the night sky looked like to the Magi and from there figure out what it was they were looking at . Its amazing and like I said this is a do not miss film

I also share in interest in the Star because it was around the time of the birth of Jesus that the Tahitian navigators set out from Polynesia looking for the land "where fresh water falls from the heavens" or Ha-Wai-I. The Kahuna or religious priests told the navigators that after the voyagers crossed where they could no longer see the stars of the southern skies, then an object would rise out of the eastern sky that would lead them to the new land

The theory in Bethlehem Star is that this phenomenon in the sky was a conjunction of Venus and the planet Jupiter. This would have been an incredibly bright light. The wise men of Herodian court as well as those of the East would have see this. There would have been discussions regarding this. I think with the Magi showed up it confirmed the worst suppositions. The Magi may have been descended of Jews of the Babylonian Diaspora, and knew the scriptures, so they were looking for their longed for Messiah

The Tahitians, Magi and others aside....we too are looking for a star to led us. We need to look for the Star of the Morning, Jesus. This star was too bright for those Jews in authority at the time. They had hearts too dark and cold for the Light of the Star to penetrate. So the Magi knowing through a dream that there would be reprisals left by another way...

As we leave the Christmas season on this Twelfth Night, my the Light of Christ go out from each of us to all of those around us...

Labels: Catholic, Hawaii, scripture