A Celestial New Beginning (Matthew 2:1-12)

(Explanatory note: In this, I attempt to give a plausible sense of what the Magi felt, when they saw the star rise. I’m no expert on Zoroastrian traditions of the early first century, so the details of their lives here are pure supposition. Instead, I hope to communicate more of an emotional truth. Why would star watching priests, an extreme distance away, seek a newly born king?)

From my youth, I trained to watch the stars. The elders told me that the stars contain infinite mysteries in their shifting positions, that one can unlock the secrets of our world through careful and diligent observation. I believed them, then, and I still do. However, they left out the part where not much ever changes. Night after night, month after month, year after year, you do see changes – the same changes. We watch an endless cycle playout – again and again. You watch in case something changes, but, in my experience, it doesn’t. Why did I listen to the elders?

I rose from my rest at sunset – prepared for another night of the same. I trekked up the hill of observation, checked my scrolls, sharpened my quill, refilled my ink pot. As the sun sank below the horizon, I saw my brethren doing the same. The nightly dance moved with its predictable rhythm. With the last gasp of sunlight, our eyes turned skyward, as if in unison, quills at the ready, to do our duty. Muscle memory took over, freeing my mind to wander. I had made so many similar observations that my eye and my hand took the notes. I pondered deeper things – the coming morning meal, whether my betrothed would be working in her family’s shop as I walked past, the growing hole in my formal cloak that I was running out option to hide. I finished a notation and briefly zoned back into proceedings. I looked at my work, and for the thousandth time, chided myself for not paying attention. I had accidentally added a heavenly body that didn’t exist. No star that bright existed in that part of the sky. I pondered how to correct this error without the Chief Magi noticing. Usually, my errors were minor – slightly wrong angles or a mislabeling or two. A new star right in the middle of my notations proved harder to cover up.

Just as I decided to stage a mishap involving the nearby torch, I noticed something else. The nightly dance had stopped dead. No one else sat on their stools. No one else held their quills. Our generations long silent revere shattered by joyous singing. I too looked again at the sky. I too rose from my stool. I too dropped my quill. I too rushed over to dance and sing with my brothers. I hadn’t made a mistake. A new star had joined the pantheon of the sky, opening a whole new world of possibility.

That day, no one slept. We barely left the hill. We waited with anticipation for sunset and another view of the star. As the sun took its nightly rest, another shout of joy escaped our lips. Not only did the new star rise again. It had moved. All stars move but in predictable, regular, increments and directions. We know them well, too well. This new one had moved ten times that amount and in a peculiar direction. The next night, we saw the same thing – the new star, a huge shift across the sky, heading away from the other stars. What could it mean?

After a week of the new star and its extraordinary progress, our joy and excitement had not decreased, but a new idea had taken hold. We should follow this star. One of the more learned brethren, who had not slept through his lessons on our texts, declared that this kind of star, moving in this kind of way, could only mean a divine king had been born. We must go and pay that king homage, wherever he may be. Immediately, we began to prepare an expedition to follow the star and seek the king. The elders began seeking volunteers to make the journey. It could be long and dangerous. No one knew where it would lead. Our attendants filled carts with gifts and supplies. The volunteers began saying goodbye to their loved ones – not knowing when or if they’d return.

A new thought crept into my head. I should go and seek the king. I’d never had a feeling like this. Normally, I sought to do the least work possible and still get to call myself a Magi. I pushed it from my mind. The swirl of excitement had caught up with me.

I attended the send off blessing for the volunteers, with everyone else. We prayed for their safety. We waved incense over every inch of them, their carts, their supplies, and their gifts. At the conclusion of the service, as they bravely set forth, the Chief Magi turned to me and said, “You should get going, or they will leave you behind.” I looked at him, puzzled. Since when did he read minds? “I know what has been in your heart. You should listen to it.” I did. Surprise, joy, and excitement rushed into me. I took off running to catch up with the expedition, to seek a newly born divine king.