Tyler Johnson, MDiv
Tyler is a pastor and a former NASA engineer. He loves to explore truth through God’s word and God’s works. He lives in Iowa with his wife and four children and spends what little free-time he has pondering the mysteries of light
When I was a teenager the Hale-Bopp comet flew close enough to earth that it was visible without a telescope for about a year-and-a-half. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to watch it continue its lonely journey across the sky. It was an amazing sight. But I’ll be honest, I probably would have never noticed it if the news didn’t report on it so much. I appreciated the stars as a child, but I didn’t really keep track of their movements. I knew a couple constellations, but that was about it. If Hale-Bopp wasn’t such a popular comet, I probably would have never noticed it.
We’ve officially entered the Christmas season (or Advent in the Church). This seems like a good time reflect on the nature of the Incarnation (the enfleshment of God, the birth of Jesus Christ). And when possible, I’ll bring in some science, just for fun.
Let’s start with the Christmas story as Matthew tells it in his gospel. He tells about a group of Magi, or wise men, who came to Jerusalem looking for a newborn king. If you’re like me, congratulations, you must be pretty cool; but also you’ve probably heard this story so many times that it’s almost boring. So let’s slow down and think through the story a bit. The Magi were probably from Babylon, which was hundreds of miles away from Jerusalem. It would have taken about a month to walk between the two lands. Also, they had to walk across a desert. When they get to Jerusalem, they are sent to Bethlehem. There they find a baby and his parents. The Magi bow down and worship this child and give expensive gifts to the parents. Then they leave and go home.
The Magi spent at least two months walking through the desert just so they could visit a baby who was supposed to be the king of a foreign nation. When they get there, they spend a day or so in Bethlehem. They worship a baby. They give away gold and expensive ointments. Then they pack up and head out for another long journey through the desert to get back home. Have you ever wondered, why? Why would they do this? What on earth would compel them to take such a journey and do what they did? Or maybe the better question is, “What in heaven would compel the Magi to take this journey and worship a baby?”
The Bible says that this whole journey started when the Magi saw a star rising in the East. Somehow, they were able to learn from this star that a newborn baby was born somewhere near Jerusalem. How in heaven did they figure that out?
First of all, the Magi were star gazers. It was their job to know the movements of the stars and to look for anything interesting that might be a message from the gods. They were experts at knowing where the stars should be, when certain constellations should show up each year, and how the planets moved across the sky. The stars told the stories of the gods to them.
So here is probably what happened in the sky that led the Magi to Bethlehem. *
It was fall, the time of year when the constellation Virgo appeared in the early morning. The Magi in Babylon were expecting her return to the sky after being absent for a number of months. As Virgo arose in the sky, the Magi saw something different about her. There was a new star in the center of the constellation. This star had never been there before. Clearly this was a message from the gods! So early every morning the Magi would wait for Virgo to arise and they would keep track of what the new star was doing. The star stood still for a while, it just grew a little brighter every day. Then something amazing happened. The star began to move. It moved right out of the constellation Virgo and soon it disappeared into the rising sun.**
To the Magi these events told them that a virgin was going to give birth to a child. That is what they saw happening in the stars. Since, the new star appeared in a constellation, the Magi knew that the baby would be a great leader. So they began to study all the wisdom and writings that they had to find any mention of the gods talking about something like this happening. Eventually they found a prophecy that said, “A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.” The prophecy goes on to tell how this star is a great leader who will be a savior of the nation of Israel. The prophecy came from the Jews who lived in Jerusalem.*** It was the God of the Jews who had made this prophecy. So the Magi gathered their things and headed to Jerusalem to worship the newborn king that the stars had told them about. To their surprise the star reappeared and helped them find the child.
Today we know much more about the stars than the Magi did. It probably wasn’t a new star that they followed, but a comet. Comets come from outside the solar system. They are chunks of dust and rock that get sucked into the sun’s gravitational pull and start a long slow orbit around the sun. Sometimes they return, sometimes they don’t. It is estimated that Hale-Bopp will be visible from Earth again around the year 4385. Comets have weird paths around the sun, and so they move weirdly across the night sky. What seems to make the most sense that a comet showed up in the constellation Virgo, grew in size and then moved out towards the sun and was no longer visible. After it circled around the sun it became visible again and helped the Magi find Bethlehem. It also helps that comets have tails and can look like they are pointing to something.
If the Magi saw a comet in the sky then it must have come from outside the solar system. Long ago it was just a chunk of interstellar dust that got bumped by another chunk and started moving towards our sun. It took centuries to get close enough to earth for humans to see it. But when it showed up it told a group of pagan Babylonian astrologers about Jesus’ birth. And they became some of the first humans to worship him.
Think about how long God had been watching that comet and waiting for it to get close enough to earth. Or maybe he was the one who nudged it towards the sun. Either way God was extremely patient as he waited for the sky to tell the story of what he was doing on earth. God knew what was coming long before the people on earth did. He had started answering their prayers for a savior centuries before the savior was born. God is patient. Sometimes he asks us to be patient as well. Perhaps his answer to our prayers is already on its way.
* I am following the fascinating study by Colin R. Nicholl in his book The Great Christ Comet (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015).
** Nicholl connects the heavenly scene in Revelation 12:1-5 to this same event. The woman is the constellation Virgo. The twelve stars are a collection of visible stars near the “head” of Virgo. The dragon is the constellation Hydra, a serpent, which sits directly below Virgo. The star moved out of Virgo and towards Hydra, but was lost in the morning sun before the serpent could snatch it away. If you read Revelation 12:1-5 as the same event in the sky that the Magi saw, it’s pretty compelling.
*** The prophecy is from Number 24:17 which has long been connected to the Magi’s star. The (Babylonian) Magi were familiar with Jewish writings because the Jews had been exiled in Babylon for 70+ years.