A Star at Its Rising: Thoughts on Epiphany

“When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews?  We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.'”

I lie down every night with the stars.  I rise every morning with the sun.  I am not surprised by either light.  What star’s blaze, then, could wake me and so shake me that I would pack up and leave home and travel – unarmed and unguarded - to foreign lands?  I think of the magi and translate their journey into my own anxious times, trying to imagine what light would draw me to travel to Ukraine or Gaza.  What light could compel me to go, propel me down unfamiliar roads?

I think of the magi, and wonder.  But I think of King Herod, and tremble.  I look on a map and trace the miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.  It is a short distance, a familiar way.  A star igniting the Bethlehem sky – the celestial bonfire heralding the birth of a king – must have lit up the neighboring streets of Jerusalem.  The light surely blazed in Jerusalem’s windows, disturbing Jerusalem’s slumber.  Wouldn’t such a star wake people – all the people – from their sleep, sending them out, forcing them to look up?

But nothing in Matthew’s gospel suggests that Herod saw; saw anything at all.  Something is happening outside his window and he hears of it first from strangers and aliens, wayfarers in his land, a land grown strange to him, a land where the night keeps secrets.  Even after hearing this news, Herod does not run to the window; doesn’t look out.  He calls his advisors, but, still, he does not see.  He is surprised, the gospel tells us, and “greatly troubled...”   He is surprised by the magi, not the star.  He is troubled by the rumors of a rival king.  But is he troubled by his blindness?  Does he rise at night - quietly, careful not to reveal his waking – and walk outside?  Does he look up and search the sky for the star, shuddering when the sky reveals nothing to him?

I think of Herod and, fearful now, translate his blindness into my own anxious life, wondering what fireworks burst just outside my window.  What “star at its rising”

have I missed?  To what light am I blind?

I consider the reading from Isaiah, proclaimed at midnight as the world moves from the eve of Christmas into its dawn:

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom

a light has shone.

            And I pray, “Amen.  May it be so.”