Well, I don’t know if 2009 holds any big dates for you, such as a significant anniversary or birthday, such as one that ends in a five or a zero, but there are a couple of anniversaries of note that you won’t want to overlook.  The first one is that our Baptist faith will be 400 this year, as John Smyth and Thomas Helwys started that first Baptist church of Amsterdam in 1609. That is pretty old, considering that most of our Baptist thinking and practices are only about a refreshing 50 years old.  But that is not the one I am excited about, that would be the second 400 year anniversary of another who was persecuted by that same church in 1609 but he did not flee to Holland for intellectual freedom, but chose to stick it out with the mother church.  His name was oddly Galileo Galilei, which must be kind of like Bill Williams or Bob Roberts in the modern tongue.  It is the same essential name used twice.

But, back to the anniversary.  You see, New Year’s Day marked the beginning of what will undoubtedly be more than 12 months of celebrating astronomy. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has designated 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first celestial observations using a telescope. IYA2009 has been endorsed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the U.N. General Assembly.

You remember Galileo; he was the poster boy for the science vs. religion debate.  Galileo invented a crude elementary telescope and saw such wonders as four of Jupiter’s moons, now known as the Galilean moons; the rings of Saturn, and the craters of the moon in great detail.  Turns out it was not Swiss cheese after all, go figure. But it was looking at Venus, a planet with non-descript surface features as it is shrouded in gas that rocked his world.  He noticed that Venus went through phases like our own moon, phases such as first quarter, crescent and the like.   It was then that he determined that Nicolai Copernicus was correct, and that we had a heliocentric universe; that is we revolved around the sun, and that the earth was in fact not the center of the universe.  And he also proved that American’s did not invent arrogance as the church took the prize in his day.  To make a long story short, he was condemned as a heretic by the church based on the church’s literal interpretation of certain scriptures, mostly in the Psalms.  This again proving the dangers of an overly literal interpretation of the scriptures.  He was sentenced to prison and forbidden to speak of such things, but later his sentence was eased to just house arrest and he was allowed to speak of his beliefs only as hypothesis.  What takes the cake was that Galileo was not a trouble maker, but a man of great faith and respect of the church, and surely that bought him some brownie points. He always wanted to dialogue with the powers that were, and obediently (for the most part) followed the churches direction.  He did have three illegitimate children, but shoot they became nuns so it was OK. But alas, Galileo Galilei can stop turning over in  his grave, on Friday the Vatican finally declared him a hero, taking only 350 years to realize that there was something to what he was saying, and they cleared him of wrong-doing.  The Catholic Church did learn its lesson as they were much easier on Darwin, the mortal enemy of Baptists everywhere.  We had no opinion of Galileo, because as he was looking through his scope Smyth and Helwys were high-tailing it to Holland.

So today, Galileo Galilei is going from heretic to hero. The story was released this past Friday: 

The Vatican is recasting the most famous victim of its Inquisition as a man of faith, just in time for the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s telescope and the U.N.-designated International Year of Astronomy in 2009.Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to the Italian astronomer and physicist recently, saying he and other scientists had helped the faithful better understand and “contemplate with gratitude the Lord’s works.”In May, several Vatican officials will participate in an international conference to re-examine the Galileo affair, and top Vatican officials are now saying Galileo should be the “patron” of the dialogue between faith and reason. It’s quite a reversal of fortune for Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who made the first complete astronomical telescope and used it to gather evidence that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed the Earth at the center of the universe. The church denounced Galileo’s theory as dangerous to the faith, but Galileo defied its warnings. Tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant, he was sentenced to life in prison, then house arrest. The Church has for years been striving to shed its reputation for being hostile to science, in part by producing top-notch research out of its own telescope. In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared that the ruling against Galileo was an error resulting from “tragic mutual incomprehension.” But that apparently wasn’t enough. Last January, Benedict canceled a speech at Rome’s La Sapienza University after a group of professors, citing the Galileo episode and depicting Benedict as a religious figure opposed to science, argued that he shouldn’t speak at a public university. The Galileo anniversary appears to be giving the Vatican new impetus to put the matter to rest. In doing so, Vatican officials are stressing Galileo’s faith as well as his science, to show the two are not mutually exclusive. (The Columbia Dispatch, JAN 2, 2009).

As you know, I love to look at the stars, and these cold winter months are the best, and it is about the only redeeming feature of the winter for me.  The night air is cold, but clear, and ideal for viewing astronomical phenomena.   The low humidity with no haze or pollution make for dark skies.  Plus, the best features are out in winter, with most of the brightest stars and constellations visible.  Mighty Orion the hunter dominates the eastern sky, and with a good pair of binoculars away from the city lights you can get a glimpse of the great Orion nebula, which is literally a star factory, churning out new worlds like termites replicating on a rotten piece of wood, or maybe like Duggars popping out in Northwest Arkansas.  Just below Orion, Canis Major sits, which contains Sirius, the “dog star,” and the brightest star in the sky.  Nearby are the twins of Gemini, but if you look closely at the feature stars, Pollux and Castor, you will be able to tell that they are different colors, so they must not be identical twins.  You can even for 49.95 have a star named after a loved one at the international star registry, who will then send you a map to see where the star that you named is located.  But good luck, because there are already 1,000s named by astronomers, and with the city lights you can only see about a 1000 stars at night.   And trust me, you’ll never figure it out in a telescope, so save your money.

But I wonder what it would have been like to see the star of Bethlehem some two thousand years ago.  Interestingly enough, there are a number of astronomy websites, including the one at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA that try to scientifically explain the star of Bethlehem.  One theory involves a conjunction of two or more planets that is two planets closely aligned in the sky; another theory suggests that it was a supernova, or exploding star that would perhaps produce many times its normal light.  Still others believe that it was a falling star, or meteorite, perhaps part of the Geminid shower, or one of the other spectacular meteorite displays that happen in the winter.

Many planetariums around the country in December have a Christmas show in which these theories are described.  But there is a goodly amount of mystery surrounding the star that attracted these wise ones, in fact, there is even more questions about the celestial event of the ages. 

There is no indication in the text that any other person than the wise men who actually saw the star. Kind of strange, don’t you think?  The shepherds in the field evidently did not see the star, Herod who would have surely heard about such a phenomena in the kingdom, did not see the star, Mary and Joseph did not see the star, and there is no contemporary record of a big star. Mark, Luke, and John do not record a big star. Astronomers running their planetariums backwards through time are not unanimous about it, and scholars trying to date the birth of Christ with its appearance have been confounded. Possible candidates for the star simply do not match the gospel’s chronology and dating. The reason for this is that Matthew never alleged a conspicuous star.  So some have suggested that the wise men were not of the science of astronomy but of the pseudoscience of astrology.  And by the way, Galileo was also interested in Astrology as well.  These wise men were astrologers.  

Now I know what you’re thinking, you are probably like me and were taught to believe that astrology is of the devil, and that you will burn in hell for dabbling in it, that it is anti-god, that the devil will posses your mind against your will, that you will projectile vomit and your bed will fly across the room. But come on now, you have all read your horoscope haven’t you?  I know you have.  Or you have read a fortune cookie.  And don’t you at least know your birth sign, mine is Virgo.  Reading Jean Dixon has not compromised my faith in the Almighty, and the truth is, there are many more passages of scripture that promote astrology which was a common practice in Jesus world, than purportedly condemn it.  Passages like Luke 21:25-27: “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”  Or in Genesis chapter 1:14 “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:” Most of the inflammatory passages in the Old Testament are really condemnations on the King of Babylon and his court of Astrologers, not astrology itself.  Now don’t be overly concerned, I think horoscopes are harmless fun, sort of like the ubiquitous fortune cookie, and don’t necessarily open your mind up to demon possession.   

But maybe it could be that no one saw the star, because it wasn’t an Astronomical event but an astrological event, and probably most of the Jews in the region wouldn’t fool with such things, so they might miss such a sign.  I do find it interesting that these wise men had to stop and ask for directions from of all people, Herod, who had not heard of the event, but was very interested in the newborn rival.  I guess wise men aren’t afraid of asking for directions and maybe the unwise are!  Incidentally, if there was a star in the east in the winter, it could have appeared in the constellation of Pisces, or “the fish” which was of course, an early symbol for Christians.  There was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7 BC in the constellation of Pisces.

But the wise followed their star, and they made a long and arduous journey to do so, and they found what they were looking for, the King of Kings, ironically in the form of a hapless babe.  These gentiles, perhaps pagan gentile astrologers of all things were able to see what the good religious folks missed.  In fact, the poor were there, represented by the shepherds; the dumb were there, represented by the dumbest of animals, the ox and the donkey as described in what some call the fifth gospel, the prophet Isaiah.  And those unclean, pagan astrologers, whom we have made palatable by calling kings, were there, all to experience the news flash of the ages.   

So following one’s star has forever since been a metaphor for finding one’s destiny, and fulfilling their life’s work.  We make wishes on falling stars, and we are guided by the stars.  We reach for the stars.  Columbus found the new word by following the stars at night.  So not unlike the wise ones, we too follow the stars, perhaps not Jean Dixon stars, but are constantly in search of something in life.   We search for happiness, we search for peace, we search for joy, we search for meaning and purpose, we search for the will of God in our lives and we even search to find ourselves.   Much of the time the search seems futile and we have to stop and ask for directions along the way.  The wise among us realize that the search is a journey, and not just a destination.  The search involves failures, it involves mistakes it involves detours.  It involves our minds, our hearts, and our souls, and it often involves hard work.  Following the stars is not nearly as romantic or idealistic as it sounds.  But following the stars, our star, is a necessity in life if we are to find any form of significance or meaning.

But the truth is, there are all kinds of stars in the heavens.  I will never forget our trip to Canada in 2000.  I was thrilled to see the Aurora Borealis in all its splendid resolve of color. But I was equally excited to sit out on the deck of our cottage on the North shore of Lake Superior near Thunder Bay and see countless thousands of stars in the night sky, far away from any city lights.  There were so many, that even the familiar constellations were difficult to discern because of the addition of so many other stars to the picture.  Life is a lot like that as well.  We have so many choices, so many claims to truth, so many stars to follow; the picture can be quite confusing.  It is easy to get lost, or to perchance follow the wrong star. 

I think that the message of Epiphany Sunday is one worth remembering, and it is as simple as a worn out cliché– wise men and women still seek him.  Because the truth is, sometimes we moderate folk trade conviction for tolerance.  We trade our doctrine for accommodation.  And we trade belief with freedom, and use the cherished beliefs of soul competency and the priesthood of every believer to promote I’m OK you’re OK and say that following any star is OK as long as you are following your star.  We say that this diverse world is a better place because of the millions of stars that one can choose to follow.

I am here today to say that I know of a man who faithfully follows his star, a man of undisputed conviction, a man on a mission, a strong charismatic leader, one of zealous obedience, one of headstrong belief, a man willing to die for his cause, one who possess most every desirable characteristic that we seek save one– his name is Osama Bin Laden.   He is a perfect example of a man following the wrong star.     Epiphany means “discovery,” and the message of Epiphany is, which star we follow whether we name it after ourselves or not is very important.  And that’s what made these astrologers different from Herod’s court astrologers, and from every other astrologer or sage in the land.  It’s what made them different from the good religious folk, from the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and even different from the common Jew who would betray him.  Because these astrologers were truly worthy of the moniker “wise men,” for the star they pursued, the Star of Bethlehem was the one that somehow would be the key in whatever other stars they decided to follow in life.  And in their finding the Christ child, they represent us all, who have been on the journey and are hungry for something we are not quite sure of.  Because our following the stars, our search for something in life, our search for happiness, our search for peace, our search for joy, our search for meaning and purpose, our search for the will of God in our lives and even our search to find ourselves is inextricably wrapped up in the Star of Bethlehem.  And for those who have found him and the difference he makes, have heard Good News indeed.  And life’s complex picture becomes as clear as a cold winter night sky, the one where the stars are always bright. Thanks be to God! Amen.