"Star of Wonder" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday December 21, 2025 – 4^th Sunday of Advent
Scripture:  Matthew 2:1-12

This is the fourth week of a 4-week (plus Christmas Eve) story-telling series. Different people who are part of the nativity scene tell the story of how they ended up at the manger.

 

You asked me how I came to be at the manger.  I’m here because I followed a star.

 

My name is Maryam, and I can still remember the first time that I saw the night sky.  We were walking home from somewhere, and I was small enough that my father was carrying me.  I was wrapped in blankets to keep the cold out, but when we were part-way home, my father stopped walking, and pulled the blanket away from my face, and told me to look up.  I can still remember the feeling that I got, looking at the night sky with little pinpricks of light from one horizon to another, and a great wash of light through the centre, almost as if someone had spilled a jug of milk across the sky.  I felt so tiny and insignificant next to that sky, and yet something within me was pulling me upward, as if I could join the great dance of the heavens.

 

And that initial fascination never left me.  Even though it was an unusual path for a girl to be apprenticed to the stargazers, it wasn’t unheard of, and when I was old enough, my parents took me to their tower in the desert and left me there to begin my studies.  Night after night, we studied the stars, learning each star by name, and learning the patterns that they danced in across the sky.  By day, we pored over our star charts, marking the celestial dance on paper.

 

There were deeper secrets we studied too – what you might name as magic.  Secrets of how the movement of the stars both reflected what was happening on earth, and could also shape what would unfold.

 

It was a beautiful life, with our hearts and our minds in the heavens, alongside others who shared our passion.

 

The night that the new star appeared in the sky began like any other night.  It was Kurosh who spotted it first, sometime after midnight, hanging above the western horizon.  It wasn’t the biggest or the brightest star, but that night there was a star in the sky where there had been no star before.

 

After the initial excitement passed, we were left with many questions and no answers.  Did this new star have a name?  What was the protocol for naming stars?  There had never been any new stars in the sky for as long as anyone could remember – the stars just had names; they didn’t need to be named.  And more importantly, why had this star appeared?  Had a change happened here on earth that had brought this star into being; or was this new star going to shape what would unfold on earth?

 

We debated these questions for days, until we finally decided that we had to follow the star in order to find the answers we desired.  We gathered together the things that we would need for the journey.  We didn’t know how long we would be traveling for, but we brought provisions for a couple of weeks, and gold coins, along with smaller coins made of silver and copper so that we could buy food along the way.

 

We also brought some precious medicines made from the sap of far-off trees – some were in solid form that could be burned to cleanse the air of evil spirits, and some in ointment form that could be used to anoint a king or to anoint a body for burial.  We didn’t know what we would encounter along the way, and wanted to be prepared for any eventuality.

 

We set off, across the desert.  Camels carried our provisions, and sometimes in the coolness of the morning or evening we would walk, but when the sand became too hot for our feet, we would ride the camels.  In the evenings, we would curl up under layers of blankets, and gaze at the stars overhead.

 

It was slow-going, as we followed the star on the western horizon.  We were such a large group – so many people and camels – that we couldn’t travel quickly.  But with each passing night, the star seemed to shift in the sky; it seemed to travel upward until it was almost overhead, and so we knew that we were getting closer to our destination.

 

By this time, we were entering the land of Judah, and so we assumed that the star must be leading us to the palace of the King of Judah, King Herod.  And even though the star was slightly to the south of Jerusalem, that is where we went first.

 

At Herod’s palace, we were met with confusion.  We explained our story – we explained how a new star had appeared in the sky, and we explained how a new star in the sky must be connected with what was happening here on earth.  We asked if a king had been born in the palace, and with that, the king said that he would have to consult with his advisors.

 

When he came back, he told us that the tradition of their people was that a true king of the people would have to be born in Bethlehem, the city of the great king of history, King David.  He asked us to go and find that king, and once we had found the king, to come back and tell him, so that he too might go to pay his respects.

 

Being in the presence of King Herod didn’t give me a good feeling.  When we left, I felt as though I wanted to wash my hands and my feet over and over again, as if I could never get fully clean again.  And when we asked for directions to Bethlehem, we weren’t surprised to be told that it was south of Jerusalem, and that night, the star was there in the sky, waiting for us to finish our detour.

 

And so we followed the star, and when it was fully overhead, we knocked on the door and waited.  When the door was opened to us, we told our story again to the woman who opened it to us, and asked if a king had been born in this place.  She laughed, and through her laughter she told us that no, a king hadn’t been born, but her cousin’s wife had had a baby, and ever since then, people had been knocking on the door to meet the baby – from the neighbours, to other family members in Bethlehem, to a rag-tag group of shepherd boys.  And now here was a gaggle of foreigners wearing strange clothes, speaking with a strange accent.  Everyone else had seen the baby, so why not us too?!

 

It wasn’t what we had expected.  There was no palace, no jewel-studded cradle, no servants to wait on the young prince.  Instead there was a small and now very crowded house, with a young couple cradling their firstborn child.  But the stars are never wrong, and we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was who we were here to see.  And so we fell to our knees in awe and reverence.

 

We felt such peace in that place, and such gratitude.  I can’t explain it, and it doesn’t make any logical sense, but then again, the stars don’t have to make sense.  In gratitude, we opened our bags and offered gifts to this baby and his parents – any gold that we wouldn’t need for our return journey we gave to them, along with the precious medicines that we had brought.  Gifts for the newborn king of the heavens.

 

That night, as we camped out under the stars, all of us had the same dream, and in that dream, the stars told us not to return to Herod, the pretender king, but to return home by a different route.  But that is a story for another time.

 

I came here to the manger because I followed a star, because I trusted in a heavenly sign.  What about you?  Why are you journeying to the manger this year?

 

 

Image:  “Milky Way Over Ranch Garage”

by Jeff Sullivan on flickr

Used with Permission