The Second Sunday after Christmas.

The Second Sunday after Christmas

Pastor Gregory L. Jackson

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bethany-lutheran-worship

Bethany Lutheran Church, 10 AM Central Time

The Hymn # 131           The Star Proclaims                4:89

The Confession of Sins
The Absolution
The Introit p. 16
The Gloria Patri
The Kyrie p. 17
The Gloria in Excelsis
The Salutation and Collect p. 19
The Epistle and Gradual       

The Gospel              

Glory be to Thee, O Lord!
Praise be to Thee, O Christ!
The Nicene Creed p. 22
The Sermon Hymn # 305:1-5                   Soul Adorn Thyself                4:23

 Planned from Eternity for Us

The Hymn #305:6-9               Soul Adorn Thyself             

The Preface p. 24
The Sanctus p. 26
The Lord's Prayer p. 27
The Words of Institution
The Agnus Dei p. 28
The Nunc Dimittis p. 29
The Benediction p. 31
The Hymn #657            Beautiful Savior                                       4:24      

Ephesians 1:3-16

King James Version (KJV)

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

⁴ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

⁵ Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

⁶ To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

⁷ In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

⁸ Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;

⁹ Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:

¹⁰ That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

¹¹ In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

¹² That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

¹³ In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

¹⁴ Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

¹⁵ Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,

¹⁶ Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;

Planned from Eternity for Us

 

Matthew 2:13-23 (King James Version)

¹³ And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

¹⁴ When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:

¹⁵ And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

¹⁶ Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying,

¹⁸ In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

¹⁹ But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,

²⁰ Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.

²¹ And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

²² But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:

²³ And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

The Wise Men and the Star

We have a curious reversal about science. Today we have vast sums of money spent on exploration and astronomy, but few people know anything about the night skies above them. One reason is our lighting wiping out the star-scape, and we need them less for navigation and weather predictions.

When I had a large telescope, I looked forward to the nights when I could use it and share the views with friends. I got to know the weather and get a feel for what would happen. The moon tended to wipe out the best views, and nights with the full moon were the clearest of them all. After a full moon, we usually had days of rain in Michigan.

When the skies are blackened by a lack of artificial light, and night vision is keen, everything in the sky is known and significant. When Jesus was born people were quite observant of the sky and everything happened. The Chinese wrote down their observations.

The people who mocked the Star of Bethlehem (common when I was growing up) showed how little they knew about the sky. During the time Jesus was born, two or three events took place that are considered the Star of Bethlehem. The Chinese recorded them and astronomers can reproduce them for SRO audiences during the Christmas season at the planetarium. We saw this done in Chicago.

Planetary conjunctions are very exciting, because their wandering (Greek name for planet) in the night sky draws them together every so often. I was going to a clergy event with Chris when the night sky featured all the bright planets in conjunction. I said, “Look, that will never happen again for 1100 years.” A Harvard PhD lady pastor said, “My boyfriend loved astronomy. That was boring, so I dumped him.” In fact, I was the only pastor who noticed the night sky. Oh – we are so scientific today.

http://www.observadores-cometas.com/Star_of_Bethlehem/English/Possible.htm

Since the night sky was the Internet, television, radio and newspapers combined, consider how the entire world viewed those celestial events. According to one theory, the conjunction of planets made it clear that the king was being replaced. Everyone knew something was going to happen. Add to that electric atmosphere, star-gazers from East, traveling a long distance and asking about this king and savior.

Kings are always jealous of their power. If they are not brutal, they are quickly replaced. Everyone knew something was about to happen, and the Scriptures said it would. Once the throne passed from the House of David, the Savior would come. Herod was not a Jew. He fulfilled that prophecy. The Wise Men placed even more emphasis upon the change by asking the king about the star.

We can easily imagine that fear, confusion, and hope were all mixed together at the same time. Herod responded with the slaughter of the innocents. The wise men had to leave town quietly. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus escaped to Egypt.

As Luther observed, the appearance of the Star shows that God ordered His Creation so that the birth of the Savior would be a world event. In many different ways, for Jews and Gentiles alike, His future ministry was announced in the clearest possible ways.

This upsets rationalists, who loved to mock the Star of Bethlehem as a fable, a myth that was invented to make the birth of Jesus more charming. When the reality of the Star is grasped, and people flock to demonstrations of its truth, the rationalists seethe that planetariums are making money from the faith of their patrons.

This is the balance between faith and reason. The Enthusiasts betray their mental laziness by mocking study, as if brainless faith is better because it is based on emotions alone. But emotions are as volatile as the weather.

Knowing and appreciating what God has done in history is one way to guard against our volatile emotions. Gerhardt was a sensitive man and experienced more loss in his lifetime than six men – loss of career, loss of his wife and all his children (except one). He was exceptional in his learning and yet he was faithful to Biblical, Lutheran doctrine – not a crafty schemer using his brains to look for job security.

We can experience his inner thoughts in studying his hymns. “How dearly God must love you” – in looking at the circumstances of the Nativity.

The Star of Bethlehem

Possible Explanations of the Star of Bethlehem

 http://www.observadores-cometas.com/Star_of_Bethlehem/English/Possible.htm

The are many possible explanations of the Star of Bethlehem which have received wide support over the years. The most widely accepted are variations on comets, novae and conjunctions, although a new candidate, which has to be taken seriously, is the idea of a planetary occultation. What are these candidates and what are their strengths and weaknesses in each case?

Planetary conjunctions

The idea that a planetary conjunction might have been the Star of Bethlehem is usually credited, erroneously, to Johannes Kepler. In fact, the planetary conjunction theory only dates back to the middle of the 19^th Century. Kepler only pointed out that a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn had occurred near the time of the Nativity whilst himself favouring the nova/supernova hypothesis. A planetary conjunction is when two (or more) planets approach each other in the sky, one passing due south of the other. Conjunctions can be quite spectacular and last for several nights although a really compact conjunction lasts for just a few hours.

It was in 1968 when Roger Sinnott wrote a highly influential article in Sky and Telescope pointing to the June 17^th 2 BC conjunction of Venus and Jupiter as having been particularly spectacular from Babylon that this theory took off. Sinnott’s work is still one of the finest ever carried out in this field and all the more laudable for having been done from planetary tables, without the assistance of a computer. Sinnottinvestigated conjunctions over a wide range of dates from 12 BC to 7 AD finding more than 200 conjunctions of the major planets. He also found no less than 20 compact groupings of three or four planets, of which only 4 would have been observable. After carefully filtering the events, Sinnott concluded that the 2 BC conjunction, in Leo, would have fitted the bill.

On June 17^th 2 BC, as seen from Babylon, Venus and Jupiter would have set 3 hours after sunset, with the two planets too close together to separate by eye, having closed considerably in the time since sunset. In fact, we now know that the disk of Venus actually passed in front of Jupiter, occulting it partially.

The problem with conjunction though is that they are too common. When the Magi have been waiting several hundred years for the birth of the Messiah, they would have seen all kinds of occultations and it is hard to believe that a single occultation, however spectacular, could have been the Star of Bethlehem, quite apart from the fact that this one happened several years too late.

A Triple Conjunction

Any pair of superior planets (that is, planets outside the Earth’s orbit) can give rise to a triple conjunction whereby, instead of a single pass, the planets meet and separate three times over a period of a few months. The more exterior a pair of planets are, the more frequent are triple conjunctions relative to normal conjunctions, although the more infrequently a conjunction of any kind will occur.

Jupiter and Saturn will enter conjunction about every 20 years. During the last millennium BC, however, no less than 7 triple conjunctions also took place – one every 140 years, on average – although the interval varied from 40 years (as between 861 and 821 BC and again between 563 and 523 BC) to 377 years (as between 523 BC and 146 BC). Over the millennium there were 43 “normal” conjunctions between the two planets and 7 “triple” conjunctions.

In December 1603 Johannes Kepler observed a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn (a normal one), followed by a massing of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, when all three planets were close together in the sky. He calculated that a similar set of circumstances would have occurred in 7 BC. In fact, the 7 BC conjunction was a triple conjunction, although Jupiter and Saturn were never much less than a degree apart.

In 1976 David Hughes popularised this triple conjunction and suggested that it might explain the Star of Bethlehem, particularly as it happened in the constellation of Pisces, a constellation associated with the Jews. Sceptics point out that a far more spectacular triple conjunction (although in the constellation of Cancer) happened in 146/145 BC. Similarly, triple conjunctions were seen in Pisces in 861/860 BC and in 981/980 BC, during both of which the separation of Jupiter and Saturn was less than in 7 BC. Another important point is that the 7 BC triple conjunction was observed from Babylon, as was the massing of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars which followed, but the Babylonian records give no sign that they found the phenomenon of any special interest.

An occultation

A recent and interesting suggestion is that the Star of Bethlehem might have been an occultation. At first sight this seems unpromising. Between 20 BC and 1 AD the Moon passed in front of (occulted) the four main planets (Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) 170 times. In other words, it is hardly a rare event. However, when we calculate which of them would have been visible from Babylon in a dark sky, the number reduces in to just 5 over the 20 years – somewhat better, although still hardly a rare event.

Recently, however, Michael Molnar of Rutgars University has drawn attention to an occultation of Jupiter by the Moon in 6 BC. This took place in the constellation of Aries and was similar to a later occultation of Venus which may be referred to in a coin known as the Antioch coin. This coin shows a Ram (Aries?), the Moon and a bright star, and what appears to be the track of a planet.

Molnar suggests that the 6 BC occultation was the Star of Bethlehem because of its astrological associations, Aries being the ruling star sign of Judea and Jupiter symbolising a king, with the occultation – the reappearance of the planet from behind the Moon – symbolising a royal birth.

I am sceptical because the March 17^th 6 BC occultation took place very close to the Sun and just after sunset. It is hard to believe that it would have been observable with the Sun just 3 degrees below the horizon and Jupiter 5 degrees above it. This theory though has been very well received by many astronomers and popular writers and may be more than just an interesting anecdote in the story of the Star of Bethlehem.

Comet(s)

A theory which has been popular for many years is that the Star of Bethlehem was a comet. There is no doubt that a bright comet is a very spectacular event and would be an impressive “star”, but scrutiny of the Chinese and Babylonian chronicles reveals no evidence of a bright comet. There is an event observed in 5 BC which may be an account of a comet, but there is no description of classical elements in Chinese reports such as the tail and the comet’s movement which make it doubtful that this was a comet. Similarly, the Chinese reports imply that the object was stationary – most uncometary in an object seen for two and a half months.

Such doubts do not stop many “stars” from being depicted as comets – this practice is particularly widespread in Spain where stylised comets which show a large star with a flowing curved tail (thus getting the best of both worlds), adorn Christmas trees and buildings everywhere.

Nova

If the object seen by the Chinese in 5 BC was not a comet, then it can only have been a nova (we know, from the lack of a radio source and a visible remnant that it was not a supernova, despite its long duration of visibility). The position (southern Aquila) is consistent with having been a nova, although a little further south of the plane of the Milky Way than is normal.

The date of its apparition (March 5 BC), coinciding with the best guess as to the date of the birth of Jesus, its position in the sky (in the east at dawn) and long duration of visibility (more than 70 days), make this a very plausible Star of Bethlehem. Again though, we would have to ask the question “why this nova?” given that the Magi must surely have observed dozens of novae over the centuries that the spent watching the sky. It is a little hard to see what would have made this event particularly significant to the Magi – apart from the fact that its date coincides, as far as we can guess, with the date of the Nativity.