Science and Salvation -- FPC sermon excerpt

Star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright;
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light. (Refrain of “We Three Kings of Orient Are”)

The star of Bethlehem is one of the brightest images in the story of the birth of Jesus. It is a star we sing about on Epiphany, the day each year we remember the discovery of Jesus by the wise men from the East. Jesus has already appeared to the Jewish community in Bethlehem, and on Epiphany he is revealed to the non-Jewish world — a world represented by a group of wise men from a foreign land.

The wise men found Jesus by following a star. This makes sense, since they were astrologers — the Greek word is magi. You might say that they were the scientists of their day. And so, on this day, the Day of Epiphany, the world of science discovers the world of salvation.

This is an important topic for me, personally, and for all of us in 21st century America. On so many fronts, the world of science is locked in a battle with the world of religion, and this fight is terribly destructive for people on both sides.

It’s also unnecessary. The scientific wise men from the East didn’t have any problem with Jesus the Savior, so why should we?

The magi used the very best science of the first century to navigate their way to Bethlehem. According to The Washington Post (December 22, 2007), a theoretical astrophysicist named Grant Mathews has recently determined that “the star in the East” was probably an unusual alignment of planets, the sun and the moon.

This alignment was unusual, but it was not miraculous. It was natural, not supernatural. God worked through the intricate mechanical processes of his universe to guide a group of astrologers to the one who would be the Savior of the world.

Grant Mathews is not the first scientist to investigate the star of Bethlehem, but he may be the first to have access to the databases at NASA. Based on the account in the Gospel of Matthew, he learned that the star appeared before sunrise, and that it seemed to stop “over the place where the child was” (Matthew 2:9). Because of changes to the calendar over the years, we don’t know exactly when Jesus was born. But there were three planetary alignments close to the birth of Jesus, and the one that occurred in 6 B.C. really stands out: That was the date when the sun, Jupiter, the moon, and Saturn aligned in the constellation Aries, while Venus and Mars were in neighboring constellations.

Grant Matthews thinks that the wise men were Zoroastrian astrologers — wise men who would have recognized the planetary alignment in Aries as a sign that a powerful leader was born. It would have also meant that the leader was destined to die at an appointed time, he says, which “would have been significant for the Christ child and may have been why they brought myrrh, which was an embalming fluid.”

A powerful leader. One who was destined to die. A perfect match for Jesus, our Savior.

Now it is true that we do not consider astrologers to be scientists today — astrology is not taught in our modern universities. But I have to give these guys credit for the work they did observing the movements of the heavenly bodies. They watched the skies closely, and followed an alignment of planets to the town of Bethlehem. There, “they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage” (v. 11). They were men of a different race, a different culture, a different philosophy, and a different religion — but when they came into the presence of Jesus, they worshiped him.