It’s that time of year…the time of year when tv and streaming are filled with holiday staples like Rudolph, A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s A Wonderful Life, Home Alone, Hallmark movies, and many more. We’ll find ourselves filled with laughter, love stories, some heartbreak, and all the emotions that are nostalgically tied to Christmas. But, this is also the time of year when networks like The History Channel and others take a shot at describing and defining the events often tied to the birth of Jesus Christ.
This is not necessarily a good thing because often the answers or theories presented are not influenced by any sort of biblical worldview. That doesn’t mean that it won’t be entertaining, if you can keep it in perspective, but it can also be dangerously misleading. Why? They often present an undervalued understanding of the loftiness of God. It seems they need a “historical” or “scientific” understanding, whatever that actually means. They need a reason for it all, and that reasoning needs to fit into a specific sized “box”, and miraculous does not fit the narrative. Therefore, they immediately take the divine out of the divine story of the birth of Christ.
For example, take the Magi and the star they saw announcing the arrival of the Messiah. Let’s get this out of the way: this is not the time to debate when the Magi visited Jesus…although it quite likely was not at the time of His birth (there, let’s move on). Matthew records the visit of the Magi in his gospel. He wrote:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. (Matthew 2:1-4, English Standard Version)
These men from the east, wherever that might have been, notice something unique in the sky: a star. Was it a newly discovered star? Was it planetary alignment? This is what networks and others like The History Channel seek to answer. They pursue answers to questions like “how did this happen” “what caused it”, and so on. To be clear, this is not taking shots at The History Channel or others. To know God is to seek answers. These answers many times fit within the purpose and order God instituted when He created the heavens and the earth. These are good things! This does not mean that God, who exists outside of time, space, and matter cannot work outside of the things He has ordered. That by definition is what makes something miraculous. It should not make sense because it does not fit within the confines of time, space, and matter, which the human mind best understands. Therefore, in the pursuit of answers to how something specifically happened, the divine, meaning the miraculous, has to be allowed.
What does this all mean for understanding the Magi and the star that rose for the king of the Jews? The better question is this: what if God miraculously and temporarily placed a star to proclaim the arrival of the Messiah? Not planetary alignment, not a newly discovered star, or any interstellar event. What if God made it happen for this divine, historical season? This does not mean it wasn’t one of the explanations previously mentioned, but it also means that it is okay if God moved outside of the box. The author of creation, the one who first proclaimed the stars into existence, absolutely had and still has the power to make a star appear for His purposes and glory.
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