Friday is the Feast of Epiphany. So…
Are you any good at math? I’m not talking about algebra, just math. Arithmetic to you sixties and seventies people. Have you ever wondered about what the last number is? I have. (nothing else to do while the NBA was on strike) There isn’t one. It just keeps going. Energizer bunny. Back to that in a minute.
It seems as though math is everywhere. I don’t know a lot about computers, but I know that an algorithm is a sequence of math calculations that causes a computer to process information. Math can be used for a lot of stuff, not just to decipher your cell phone bill. (I think the cell phone companies make stuff up on purpose so it doesn’t all add up).
Some guy in the early 1600s used math stuff to figure out the alignment of the stars, and how they progress. Name was Johannes Kepler. He was a German mathematician and astronomer (NOT astrologer!), and had at least some belief in a God that made the heavens in a very orderly fashion. He didn’t have a computer. Or a lens. And he wasn’t alive when the Baby Jesus arrived. But we are able to calculate, using laws he discovered, what the sky looked like when the Magi showed up. It seems that it took the Wise Men about 8 months to get to Bethlehem. Jesus was likely born in the spring, April-ish, and we can plot that the Magi arrived on December 25th, 2 BC. Some people think it might have been even later than that, like 2-3 years. The exact date isn’t the point, just so we don’t get into an argument about dates.
We can also support the movement of that great Star, from the east, to the west, and then to the south, to Bethlehem. We can also define where and how it stopped. It didn’t run out of gas. It didn’t burn out. Something called retrograde motion creates an optical illusion so that it looks like the star stopped. Are you impressed? I’m not as smart as I sound right now. I just know enough to start a lot of trouble.
Anyway, a bunch of smart people have figured out how to show what the sky looked like on that night in Bethlehem (or any other night, but we don’t care about the night they first learned to make a wheel out of a rock :D ) So, the Star of Bethlehem isn’t just some church story an old lady whipped up cuz she forgot her Sunday School notes one December.
Connection to infinity. Math and numbers goes to infinity. Time is eternal. Our salvation is eternal. God was, is, and will be. We existed in God’s mind for all time, and will dwell with Him forever. So God created and used time, space, science, and the physical world to build what we see, and don’t see, and also made it so we can discover it. Or at least some of it. This is part of where I get the idea from that there is no such thing as secularism. We are here, because He put us here. He has a reason for that. Part of your job, should you choose to accept it ( pun intended), is to figure that out. How? Using your gifts, talents, personality, likes and Guidance. Then, using the rest of your life to work on that purpose, and make an Impression on others, do Good to others, and give God glory in what you do. Even the things that don’t work out, by the way. I learned that the hard way in 2002.
Some people have told me that they are not religious; they don’t necessarily think God doesn’t exist, they just don’t pay much attention to it. My response to that is, You ARE religious, you just worship other things than I do. I’m not saying you’ll live forever; the infinity analogy breaks down at that point, but God is looking for you to put your piece into the puzzle. It all works for Good.
I’m thinking that the more of us who try to figure out what we are here for, and recognize that that comes from an Almighty God who is interested in all the details, even to the minutiae of aligning the Stars so you will find Him, the more content we will be, and the better we will get along with others, and then, just maybe, the world will be a better place.
So many other topics come out of that, but that’s enough for now.
Happy Epiphany. Look for the Star.
