Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

The Star stopped.

In the long history of the world this has never happened, until chapter 2 in Matthew’s gospel mentions it not once but twice.  I had never seen the once and certainly not the twice.

So what is going on here?  Some ideas:

• The birth of Christ is so amazingly cool that it actually suspended the laws of physics, at least for this one Star.
• Stars have always been an ancient GPS system and this Star’s destination was a stable in Bethlehem. No other signs or maps had the same flair worthy enough for a Messiah.
• Stars are seen in the dark of night, the darker the better, and this one hung around awhile to shine a little more light. Reminds me of a story I heard years ago about a little girl who got the part of the star in the children’s Christmas pageant. When asked what a star does, she beamed, “I just stand there and shine.”

A Star that Stops is earth-altering, life-altering, dream-altering. Makes you wonder what wonderous thing is about to happen.

Maybe this: If a star can stop, then we can too. We can stop all this war madness, this not-caring-enough-to-save-the-children-from-war madness, this insistence that some people are more worthy than others, this need to think that only we have the right answers, that the world will go on as it always has and there is nothing we can do about it. Will we ever stop thinking this way?

What else might we stop this year?  Hunger?  Homelessness?  Hurting creation?

Take your pick or add your own but the story is adamant the Star stopped. By doing so the magi knew where to find the baby Messiah, now the toddler Jesus. If it hadn’t, we all might still be wandering and wondering how we too might find wholeness, wellness, integrity, peace, and shalom, the very definitions of the word for savior.

Thank you, Star, for stopping.  The world is a different world because you did.

Grace and peace, with thanks to the Star that Stopped.

Harry