Merry Christmas

‘And they followed the star to where the baby was born, and worshiped’.

I wonder if any of you managed to see the two recent comets that have visited our part of the solar system.  I tried, but failed miserably. However, my watching and waiting was not all wasted as I spied a couple of shooting stars

On another occasion, whilst staying in the Northumberland National Park I was looking to enjoy the dark sky and take some photos of the Milky Way, which still fascinates me every time I see it.  So I set myself up late at night and wished the light cloud away and waited for the darkness to fall and the lights to come out. And they did, one by one, star after star, constellation after constellation.  And just as the full extent of the night sky gathered in view the moon rose on the horizon and the darkness brightened as if it were dawn – drat!

Sometimes when we are looking for the wonder and amazement of the heavenly something comes along and diminishes things for us, it reduces the view and what we were looking for seems hard to find. At Christmas time I do love the story of the ‘wise men’, scientists who looked to the heavens for understanding of how the amazing world we live in works. Now that may sound a silly idea but talk to any physicist today and they will tell you that it is to the heavens we need to look to find out how many of the things on our planet work, and more how it all came to be. Scientists know that understanding of how things work requires knowing how they were developed.

For the ‘wise men’ gazing at the heavens for answers led them to see that what they were looking for was right here on earth, and so they went looking for this answer.

One of the most amazing discoveries for me of the Christian faith is that it has never been about having expert knowledge of the heavens, instead it is about the heavens being fully revealed to us, here on earth.  At Christmas we declare ‘God with us, Emmanuel’. In the birth of Jesus, God is come to be with us – don’t ask me the scientific how, I don’t know, and actually it doesn’t matter much!

The reality that God is not a concept, that God came and lived with us, knows what human life is about with its celebrations, it heartaches and its possibilities, both bad and good, is simply amazing! I wonder if what made these sages ‘wise men’ was that they were open to the possibility that God is with us in Christ, with us every day through His Spirit, ready to walk with us on our life’s journey. To guide and lead us, to the place where we might worship, where we might know fully ‘God is with us’.