Led by a Star
“Longing makes the heart deep.” – St. Augustine
When the Wise Men are called to seek the Christ Child, they are drawn forth in a strange way: by an unusually bright star, shining in the heavens. In Matthew 2 we are told, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of 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 have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.’”
We rarely pause to acknowledge how odd this story is. Some unspecified number of Wise Men – who may be rulers, or philosophers, or astronomers, or possessors of some other sort of wisdom (but who are, undoubtedly, quite wealthy) – see a star they do not expect to see. They know, somehow (we don’t know how, but we have some good guesses), that if they follow it it will lead them to the newly born King of the Jews. And so they strike out on pilgrimage, choosing to be led by a celestial apparition, on their way to meet the king of a different nation so they can offer him their fealty, generosity, and worship.
The Christ Child, as it turns out, is a child recently born, living not in the home of the current king of the Jews, but in poverty and relative obscurity under the care of a young woman (who is herself of no apparent importance in Jewish or Roman society). But even so, as Matthew tells us,
“behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come to the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”
This whole story is replete with mystery, both for us and for the Wise Men who sought the Christ. The Wise Men were foreigners from another land – a land with its own history, customs, and theology – who followed a star on a long journey to an unknown destination, motivated by sheer faith that its light would lead them to a new king, who is, again, the king of a different nation, and who (for an unknown reason) they longed to worship. When this star – this inanimate, unspeaking vision – led them to him, a child living in poverty, they trusted its guidance, and they worshiped.
We have much to learn from the faith and perseverant humility of the Wise Men. Whoever they were, however they knew about the Christ Child, they were men in possession of a powerful desire to know and honor One who – regardless of what sense in which they understood this – they understood to be holy. This desire made them willing to submit themselves to mystery, to its beauty and brightness, that they might follow it to its utmost end.
Epiphany calls us to reflect the Wise Men’s journey in our own lives of faith. For we, too, are led by mystery. Christ, made known by his Word and Incarnation, is near. He is closer to us than our very breath. Even so, he remains strange to us. Our understanding is small; we are not capable of fully comprehending his being.
Like the star that led the Wise Men, Christ is our Light. He is beautiful and bright, easy to see if we are looking for him. He reveals the way we should walk, and all that is good for our souls. But he remains mysterious to us in so many ways, and the manner in which he reveals the way we should go is often strange, almost incomprehensible, to our understanding. We must, therefore, daily emulate the humility and desire embodied by the Wise Men, who had eyes to see a mystery wiser than they, and who chose to follow it to its end.
We are a people called always to live at the edge of what we know, and to love and long for the One we cannot fully know. Christ’s own mystery to us, and the subtle, startling ways he often reveals the manner in which we should walk, push at the limits of our understanding. To love Christ’s mysterious brightness changes us. It calls us to practice humility and perseverant desire. Because God is infinite, and Christ is God incarnate, our desire will never reach its end – a hopeful reality, in the end, for it means we can always delight in seeking him. He will, in turn, always delight in meeting us with himself.
As our longing for God, rightly paired with humble pilgrimage toward him, deepens our hearts, he draws us ever deeper into himself, delighting us with the revelation of his strange, brightening, and eternal wellsprings of love.