{"id":1174,"date":"2012-12-30T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/?p=1174"},"modified":"2012-12-30T13:51:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T18:51:00","slug":"bright-star-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/bright-star-rising\/","title":{"rendered":"Bright Star Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Replace<\/a>Moving slowly, they emerge from the darkness of human imagination, first as the rippling of shadows, then forming into majestic selves as the bright star leads them into the light of the Child. \u00a0Everything about them is quiet. \u00a0The silence of camel hooves in sand.\u00a0 Their beautiful cloaks, muffling human sounds. \u00a0They do not speak.\u00a0 They give, they dream, they leave.<\/p>\n

Going home by another way, they remain with us as wonder.\u00a0 We carry them\u00a0all our days, for home is the place we spend our lives seeking, on unknown roads.<\/p>\n

Luke does not mention them.\u00a0 For Luke, who wrote wonder after wonder into his gospel, there were no kings at Christ\u2019s birth, no special star, only ordinary shepherds from Bethlehem who briefly saw the light of angels there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Matthew, a rabbinic writer given to explaining away the least bit of miraculous detail, a teacher who replaces imagination with instruction on every page, gives us this extraordinary tale, so different from the rest of his gospel. \u00a0Why does he bring it forward?\u00a0\u00a0Is it the kings, the gifts, the star \u2013 or the murders \u2013 that he wants us to remember?<\/p>\n

No one else mentions these Wise Men.\u00a0 Luke writes of Mary, her determination, her words, her conversation with an angel, her journeys, her lying down in straw because there was no room in the inn.<\/p>\n

Matthew has none of this at all.\u00a0 Mary does not speak.\u00a0 Joseph is the hero here.\u00a0 He alone\"\"<\/a> encounters an angel, in a dream, determines to take Mary to Bethlehem and marry her, then again dreams, this time of danger, and rushes her and the child to Egypt, in the nick of time.<\/p>\n

Matthew\u2019s numberless kings arrive without camels, in silence.\u00a0 They shine the light of their wisdom on Herod and share their only conversation with him.\u00a0 In his palace and in his conversation they find no signs at all of wisdom, divinity, purpose, or the glory they are seeking.\u00a0 Quite the opposite, in fact:\u00a0 they turn down his requests to accompany them, and refuse to give him information.<\/p>\n

Devoid of talent, ignorant of his own traditions, and without God\u2019s anointing, Herod uses dark arts to keep his throne: terror; \u00a0savagery and secrets; \u00a0the murder of children, for which he is remembered still.\u00a0 This birth story is grisly, shocking.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Matthew does not shrink from telling us that the coming as well as the going of God from this world are shrouded in violence, intrigue and destruction, and require our courage, risk, and following of small and unexpected lights to guide our way.<\/p>\n

Yet Luke\u2019s more tranquil story of this birth has in it Mary\u2019s prophetic forecast, that God will scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts, pull the mighty from their thrones and send the rich empty away<\/em> \u2013 all the things that Herod fears.\u00a0 As coda, the prophet Simeon says, This Child is set for the fall and rising of many<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A colleague* two towns away has written that the little girl who was the Star in her church pageant, who led the Wise Men down the aisle, whose mother then lifted her up so she could shine above the manger, has been deported by the INS.<\/p>\n

Herod is still sending centurions to trample through small towns in the name of the public good.\u00a0\u00a0 The sleeping populace yawns in unconcern, buys dark weapons for itself in epic numbers and delusions of similar proportion, and goes to church on Christmas Eve, believing this story is safe for children, a comfort on a starry winter night.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The story, though, has the true power of sacred tales:\u00a0 it is Eternal.\u00a0 It is, and always will be happening now.\u00a0 And the children who\u00a0 live it, who\u00a0live through it,\u00a0who are lifted up within it and see its light, are the ones whose lives are anointed by it, who will become its light.\u00a0 When grown, it is they who will speak to us about God and Herod, they who will know whose throne is real and whose is to be torn down, they who\u00a0have heard what the Wise Men knew and what they really gave, and where in the world they went, after Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

According to T.S. Eliot, the Magi took what they learned at the crib home to ponder:<\/p>\n

.\u00a0 .\u00a0 .\u00a0 were we led all that way for<\/em><\/p>\n

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,<\/p>\n

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,<\/p>\n

But had thought they were different; this Birth was<\/p>\n

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.<\/p>\n

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,<\/p>\n

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,<\/p>\n

With an alien people clutching their gods.<\/p>\n

Christmas closes at the cliff of these questions.\u00a0 We enter\u00a0\u00a0a winter\u2019s season of epiphanies in which to\u00a0seek their meaning.<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

*Maren Tirabassi, \u00a0Gifts in Open Hands<\/em>: http:\/\/giftsinopenhands.wordpress.com\/2012\/12\/29\/791\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Illustrations:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

1. Adoration of the Christ Child by theThree Wise Men.<\/em><\/strong> 1504. \u00a0Durer, Albrecht.\u00a01504.-Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy.\u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library,\u00a0Art in the Christian Tradition<\/p>\n

2. Magi<\/strong> <\/em>by Giotto di Bonadone,\u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library,\u00a0Art in the Christian Tradition<\/p>\n

3. Detail of Joseph<\/strong><\/em> by Gentile da Fabriano.\u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library,\u00a0Art in the Christian Tradition<\/p>\n

4. Magi<\/strong><\/em> by He Qi, Nanqing, China.\u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library,\u00a0Art in the Christian Tradition<\/p>\n

5. Magi<\/strong> <\/em>by Albrecht Durer,\u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library,\u00a0Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moving slowly, they emerge from the darkness of human imagination, first as the rippling of shadows, then forming into majestic selves as the bright star leads them into the light of the Child. \u00a0Everything about them is quiet. \u00a0The silence of camel hooves in sand.\u00a0 Their beautiful cloaks, muffling human sounds. \u00a0They do not speak.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2483,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bites"],"yoast_head":"\nBright Star Rising<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Moving slowly, they emerge from the darkness of human imagination, first as the rippling of shadows, then forming into majestic selves as the bright star\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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