I really like the image of grown men following the light of a star, because it must have cost them some ego–dressed them down real good– to wander the earth trying to figure out where the starry light was coming down, and then to try and stand under it alongside Jesus, who they believed was a king, but who was also just a kid. They lived in a pretty privileged world, those wise men. How else can you explain all the time they spent stargazing? The poor keep their nose to the grindstone. They could afford to keep their nose to the sky.
They had stared up at a million stars before, and always they knew what each one meant. Then, one night, they see this other star, and they know what this one means too. They know it means there’s a power shift going down in the world—power at the hands of a 3 year-old!—and they can either resist it and hold on to their privilege, or they can embrace it. That they choose to embrace it blows my mind with hope. For what were they–40, maybe 50 years old? But not too old to leave their old dispensations behind, to launch out into the night in search of something more and else. Now, if grown men are doing it, what am I doing staying home?
But I also really like the image of the star itself, beaming down from God only knows where. And God does know. God knows that if you’re following the light of a star in search of something more and else, you don’t need to look any further than where you are. Because so long as you haven’t cluttered the sky above you with too much progress, a star is just as brilliant in America as it is anywhere else. It blankets the rich and poor alike, not because they are rich or poor, but because this is what a star does: it falls down luminous in brilliant splendor. No one can reach up and pull its light down. Nor can we stop its light from coming. The stars belong to a world not of our own making. When they do come out, the truly wise will not stay in.
But maybe it’s not necessary to actually go anywhere. Maybe there is no need to mount a camel and travel the darkness. Maybe it would be enough to look up and see that, go or stay, the starry light of God is already upon you, and will never leave you. This is grace.
It sure would be something, though, to see a grown man riding through a desert on the back of a camel, cutting left and right, always looking up. In a world where we are caught mostly looking down, it would be an inspiring sight to behold. When people ask him, “What are you doing, crazy old man? Don’t you know that star might not even be for you?” He tells them, “Of course it’s for me. Don’t you know that it’s also for you?”
PleaseGrace 