The Star Stopped

The palace gates close behind them. The road to Bethlehem stretches out into the dark. And then one of the travellers looks up, and gasps. There it is again. The star.

The magi have come a very long way. Somewhere in the east, months before, they saw a star rise and understood it as the sign of a newborn king of the Jews. They travelled to Jerusalem, the obvious place to find a king. But the king they met there was Herod, troubled and suspicious. The scholars of the law pointed to Bethlehem. Herod met them in secret and sent them on with a smile and a false promise. Now, at last, they leave the city behind and take the road south.

Matthew says: when they had heard the king, they departed. They did not linger in the palace. They had what they needed. Bethlehem was only a few miles away, a couple of hours on foot or on animals. The road ran south through the hills. It may have been dark and quiet, the city lights fading behind them. Did they feel uneasy about Herod? Did they wonder whether they would really find the child? Matthew does not say. He moves straight on to what happened next.

“And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.” The same star they had seen at the very beginning. Matthew does not explain how it moved, or what kind of light it was. He simply tells us that it went ahead of them, like a guide leading the way. And then it stopped. It stood over one particular place in Bethlehem. Not over the whole town, but over the house where the young child was. God had led them every step of the way, from a faraway land right to the door.

And then Matthew piles up his words to show how they felt. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Not just joy. Great joy. Exceeding great joy. It is as if Matthew cannot find words big enough. Imagine these dignified scholars, tired from their long journey, suddenly laughing, embracing, maybe even dancing in the road. All the miles, all the uncertainty, all the waiting. It had been worth it. The light they had followed had brought them all the way to the King.

Long before, in the book of Numbers, a foreign seer named Balaam, who said he had come from the mountains of the east, spoke a prophecy over Israel. There shall come a Star out of Jacob, he said, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel. Many Jewish readers understood this as a promise of a future king. Matthew does not quote Balaam, but his first readers may well have remembered those words when they heard of eastern visitors following a star.

The guiding star is in Matthew chapter two, verses nine and ten. A light that went before them, stopped over a house, and filled them with joy beyond words. So here is a question to carry with you. How has God guided you so far, and what fills you with that kind of joy?