Back in 2020 an unusual event occurred at Christmas time. The planets Jupiter and Saturn aligned. Their combined brightness was likened to the star that appeared over Bethlehem at the birth of Jesus. People were captivated by the beauty of the event.

In the year 7 BC a similar thing had happened with the same planets. This can be easily demonstrated with a computer simulation that rewinds the paths of Jupiter and Saturn. Such an event in those days would certainly have caught the attention of ancient sky-watchers.

In the year 5 BC Chinese astronomers recorded the lingering appearance of a bright object in the night sky. They called a “broom star”. Today it’s considered likely that this was a comet which persisted in the sky for some months.

In the summer of 3 BC the planets Jupiter and Venus crossed paths in the sky. It was even brighter than the comet several years earlier. This alignment persisted for nearly a year, finally appearing to become a single star in June of 2 BC.

The star of Bethlehem is perhaps one of the most beautiful symbols of the birth of Jesus. Such a bright star’s appearance lies well within the range of dates estimated for the nativity. Taking into account various biblical and non-biblical sources, it’s presumed that Jesus was born sometime around or after 6 BC.

In western Protestant and Catholic churches, today is the last, or Twelfth day of Christmas. You may need to resist humming the twelve days of Christmas. Tomorrow is Epiphany which means appearing. This refers both to God’s coming in Jesus as well as the arrival of the magi who followed the star to Bethlehem from the East.

You could reasonably expect today’s gospel to come from Matthew. It’s the only nativity tradition that describes the star and the magi. It is a great story that moves from the tenderness of Jesus’s birth to the threatened political aspirations of Herod, to the quick thinking and wisdom of eastern sages who were probably Zoroastrians.

Yet we get John’s gospel. It’s so different, in so many ways. There is no cradle, no stable, no star, and no sages.

Instead, John begins with this: God speaks eternally, creating life and light. God sent a witness to the light. And then God sent the only true, enlightening Word. And God said, look and see what I am doing! Some saw and believed and some have not yet seen or believed. Meanwhile the Word lives with us and within us, inviting us to shine with God’s brightness.

Where John’s gospel aligns with every other gospel, is in telling us that God is here. The difference between the gospels is that most go from the particular to the universal. While John goes from the universal to the particular.

John’s way of telling the story is very timely. Instead of pointing us to a single star, John invites us consider the whole universe and even universes beyond our own. It makes a difference in how we measure the meaning of our own existence.

The universe we mostly know is our own miniaturized universe of me. We are bombarded by messages about attending to personal things, achieving personal goals. Getting what we deserve, or need, or want.

There is virtually no us in any of it. Quite the contrary, any acknowledgment of us or them means less for me and possibly less of me. Everything is personal. This concern drives so much of the social and spiritual dimensions of our lives.

We can blame social media or AI for scrunching our universe into such individualized packaging. We’re so tightly wrapped up that it’s hard for the light to find a crack to shine through. But the truth is that being caught up in self-interest is nothing new. And it’s easy to become accustomed to living with very little light in placed too dim to notice much beyond our own concerns.

The Word of Jesus, from birth to death and beyond, has always invited us to break out of our shadowed places. God has made us children of the universe, rather than children of this tribe or that nation or even this earth. Enlightenment comes when we can broaden our view; see things differently. Including glory, grace, and truth not as personal possessions, but as a universal promise.

Each story of God’s epiphany is beautiful and full of meaning for us. It is perfectly okay to love the stable, the cradle, the shepherds, the star, and the magi. But John is right to point us to the timeless and ever-expanding universe of God. And when we begin to embrace God as limitless, we will finally be ready to know Jesus, who is, after all, God with us!