This Advent season try gazing up at a clear night sky for a few minutes to let the pin-pricked veil of darkness above lead you to awe and worship of Jesus.
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:1-4)
Stars Show us the Beauty and Purpose for Jesus’ Earth-Visit
Growing up in a tiny mountain village in Colorado I became enamored at an early age with the North Star. I remember being shown how to find the Big Dipper. With your finger pointing at the sky, first, locate the two bright stars the furthest away from the handle that forms the end of the bowl. Then run your finger upward along an imaginary line connecting those two pointer stars. After traveling up the sky about five times the distance between the pointer stars, Voila! your finger will land on one of the sky’s greatest treasures, the North Star! For millennia people in the northern hemisphere have used the North Star to figure out where they were and where they were going.
Years ago, when my family was preparing to move to New Zealand, having been enamored with the North Star in the northern hemisphere, I was excited to see the Southern Cross constellation for the first time, which is the North Star’s equivalent Down Under. If you live in the southern hemisphere you cannot see the North Star. Instead, with a stroke of brilliance to provide all people with a fixed point of reference in the sky, our Creator provided another constellation called the Southern Cross. It’s a beautiful crown of jewels arranged perfectly in the shape of a cross. For navigation, you just find the longer bar in the cross and follow that pattern with your finger going downward in the heavens above. Voila! this points you to the Southern Pole in the sky. I’ll never forget sitting in a hot tub with our Kiwi friends on the first night after we arrived. It was a perfectly clear night for them to point out the Southern Cross. Our eyes weren’t trained to see it yet, so we needed someone to show us. But when we saw it, we were in utter awe of both its beauty and its utility to orient us. Similar to that cold clear night in New Zealand when we got tethered to a fixed point in the sky to keep us oriented, Christmas is a season to be re-oriented to a fixed point in history. Christmas is a reference point through which we can be freshly enamored with Jesus’ beauty and purpose for visiting earth; to orient and reconcile us back to God.
Enormity of Grace
Whether you live in the north or the south, whether on land or sea, God has given us these two spectacular arrangements of stars to keep us from getting lost. It reminds me of a life-changing Psalm I heard when Becky and I were guiding at Wilderness Ranch in 1992. I was emerging from a pretty dry and painful season of spiritual brokenness. This Psalm awakened me to the enormity of grace, which was the purpose for which Jesus visited earth. The day I heard this Psalm and believed it for myself, grace finally became as expansive as the night sky. Grace is enormous for all of us when we see Jesus clearly. No matter how much we fail, sin, or even hide from God in our weakened flesh, Jesus will never leave us or forsake us; in fact, he will come find you even on the farthest edges of the sea. All we have to do is look up, like we would search for the North Star or the Southern Cross for an unchanging reference point:
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139: 7-12)
Christmas Star—A Guide for All Generations to Worship
We learn from this Psalm that David drew much of his understanding of how God guides us from looking at Creation. We can do the same. Stars are one example. Just as the North Star and the Southern Cross are fixed points of reference, as you prepare for this Christmas, it may help to draw your attention to the beautiful and bright star of the Christmas story. This star was a point of orientation for three wise men as they journeyed to worship the long-anticipated King who would be the one upon whom all of history would hinge. And symbolically, many years after they found Jesus in Bethlehem, after his Ascension, Jesus forever compared himself to a Bright Morning Star who would be the Guide for all generations to be reconciled back to God through worship:
‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.’ (Revelation 22:16)
As the star of Bethlehem rose, these three men from the East curiously followed the star to find the King to which it pointed. These men were astronomers and must have been aware of the prophecy in Numbers 24:17 which says: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.” When they saw the star, they were amazed that in their lifetime they would see the prophecy fulfilled! It is interesting to note that in 4 B.C. Saturn and Jupiter crossed paths and made a great light in the sky. And in 7 B.C. Chinese astronomers also recorded a great star in the sky.
Whether or not these wonders in the sky were what these men followed to Bethlehem, what encourages me about the wise men (recorded in Mathew 2:1-12) is their wholehearted commitment to find and worship the King to whom the star pointed. It is estimated that these men traveled between 600-2,400 miles to go up to Bethlehem. This would have taken between 100-400 days on camels! This is a picture to me of what true worship looks like. They were not half-hearted in their worship. They committed their whole lives to this journey to find the new-born King.
How about you and me? What does wholehearted worship of Jesus look like for you right now? What might be holding you back?
Giving Gifts is the Natural Response of Extravagant Worship
Christmas is traditionally a time of giving gifts to one another. But more importantly, as we see in this story, the idea is to give gifts to our King. The best gift you and I can give him is our whole heart—devoted to Him in worship. Imagine the preparation and devotion it took for the wise men to set out for a year on a camel to find the new-born King. This would require every bit of their being to carry out such a journey.
And this is the journey upon which we have all been invited. We have this opportunity to lay our lives down… to bow down in worship—giving Jesus our whole heart. Humble worship opens the eyes of our heart and brings us stability and peace just like when a disoriented wilderness traveler experiences peace when he locates the North Star or Southern Cross.
May you be encouraged this Christmas season by looking up in the night to ponder that fixed point in the sky. May it be a constant reminder to you to look to Jesus for true direction as we bow and worship him with your whole heart and mind. How beautiful it was for us to see the Southern Cross for the first time as our new point of orientation in New Zealand. May that same awe of seeing your First Love, Jesus so clearly fill your heart with peace this Christmas.
