Every year during the holiday season, we used to visit my grandma's home in Chihuahua, Mexico. Under the Christmas tree, she would create the most amazing nativity scene. It was her specialty—4 feet wide and 3 feet tall, crafted with real moss, miniature fake trees, sheep, rugged mountainous terrain, ponds, and snow that surrounded a little manger with baby Jesus. And, of course, atop it all, the Star of Bethlehem.
It was a sight to behold; everyone loved it. It was beautiful and very elaborate.
As the portion of the verse in the Bible, Matthew 2:9 says:
“And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.”
What? A star moving and then resting on a specific place?
To the majority of Christians and Catholics, the “Star of Bethlehem” means a great star that suddenly appeared in the heavens, like a great beacon of light, and miraculously guided the steps of the Magi until it rested stationary over the house where the child Jesus lived.
I didn't think about it then; I was a kid. But as I grew up, I started to question it. Why am I being asked to believe that a star would appear, static, on top of a specific location? As if it were a signpost anchored in a place on Earth?
All intelligent people know that stars don't work that way. A star is either a planet of our solar system, similar to planet Earth, or else is a mighty sun, countless millions of miles away from our solar system. They don't "rest over a place"; that goes contrary to the laws of physics and nature. It is unscientific.
The star did guide the Magi to Jesus, but not in the way described by Matthew. It guided them like stars guided sailors in the past, in this case, to the city of Judea. In the same way we can now predict with precision when the next solar eclipse will be.
See, planets have their invariable orbits and courses, and their course can be calculated and predicted centuries ahead or centuries back by people who study the subject, astronomers. And the Magi were some of the best astronomers of that time.
How does Christianity expect reasonable followers to swallow whole this story of the “moving star,” traveling a little ahead of the shepherds for over a year, and at last standing right over the home of Jesus? No wonder people get turned away from religion—people like me, who don’t just swallow everything a priest says just because they wear fancy tunics and preach the ‘Word of the Lord.’
This, like the Virgin Birth, just makes Christianity lose its most reasonable followers. It is one of the many examples of how the church, its priests, and followers focus on the wrong things—ostentatious ceremonies, unreasonable stories, and crude conceptions—instead of focusing only on the essence of the teachings.
To love everyone around you as you love yourself, or at least make the conscious choice to try every day. To not judge other people’s paths and never try to force your perspective on life onto them. To stop prioritizing material status and possessions over anything else. To strive to build bridges of understanding, compassion, and togetherness in a world often divided by differences. To focus on the universal values of love, empathy, and acceptance.
You can be a guiding star that leads others to a more harmonious existence, transcending dogma. A pursuit of kindness that knows no bounds. A commitment to seeing the good in everyone. A recognition of the beauty in our diversity.
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