Within the Shining of a Star

A Homily 

Delivered by the Rev. Thomas Schmidt

December 24, 2007

at the 

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Lowcountry

A star shines brightly overhead, the wise men from the East arrive, proclaiming to be following a star, and the star has led them to Jerusalem and finally on to the Bethlehem.  For countless centuries people have believed that the stars above could predict the future, that events in the vault of heaven had a direct connection to events in the daily lives of  desperate women and men attempting to make sense of their time here on Earth.  Even the wisest of men, wisest of women, could not have guessed in ages past that the twinkling lights seen in our night sky does not provide us a glimpse into the future, but rather a doorway to the past.  

Within the shining of a star, we bear witness the universal saga of creation, we bear witness and, if we so choose, we allow ourselves to be swept up in the saga.  More accurately, since we are integral to the saga, we allow ourselves to be fully conscious of that which we are and always have been a part.  Everything we are, the very building blocks of life, was manufactured in the shining of a star, many billions of years ago.  

So often in the telling of the Christmas story, the star is nothing more than a prop, a convenient reason for the wise men to appear.  But let us look at the story from that stars point of view. If we assume, for the sake of argument, that a star did shine brightly over the town Bethlehem two thousand years ago, and that we assume, as the story goes, that Jesus was born in a manger at that very same time. Even assuming all that, the truth of that poor star is that it was likely long dead at that point in time. Chances are, if a bright star suddenly appeared in the night sky, it was likely the last act of a dying star, a super nova and it took countless years for it to be visible on this little outpost of the Milky Way we call Earth.  

The star did not foretell the arrival of a king or savior, it was merely doing what stars sometimes do, doing what all stars must eventually do.  That star died, like the countless billions of stars before it, in a true blaze of glory. And from its death, the stuff of life, is sent out into the universe, sprinkling everything in its path with star dust. The child in the manger, born of stardust billions of years old, life emerging from darkness, life emergent from death. 

Is this not the same story people have been telling since time immemorial, since humans have been telling stories. Oh, sure, circumstances change, names, places, etc., but at the heart of myth, at the heart of every story ever told, written, acted, or otherwise transmitted from one person to another,  the heart of the story remains the same.  The better versions, the stories that continue to resonate with the experience of people, remain while others drop off and replaced with new variations.  The Christmas story happens to be one of those stories with real staying power because it continues to resonate with the modern experience.  

What do you suppose the Wise men were looking for when they set out on their journey, what were they seeking as they followed the shining of a distant star?  What is it they actually discovered on their journey?  The story only tells us they paid homage to the infant Jesus and gave him gifts.  When I insert myself into the story, when I become one of the travelers, I can imagine the shock of finding, that the culmination of my long, arduous journey, was a newborn infant resting in a manger.  Then it hits me like a brick and I fall to my knees, the truth I was seeking, is in the shining eyes of that child, the same light that shines from my own eyes.  

To follow the shining of a star, is to follow one’s own light.  We can spend a lifetime following distant stars, but the truth will remain as simple and as profound as this, the light is in you, it is in me, it is all around us, but we do not see, we refuse to see.  The energy of the sun and stars is in us, it is us, we are integral participant in the universal story of existence, and yet we wander the deserts following the light of a star, and we are looking for nothing more, nothing less than ourselves.