The Most Famous Non-Christmas Christmas Story

Merry Christmas!

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow and hope that the service is a blessing. Things will be a little different since we have a young up and coming pianist playing the introductory music. You’ll want to be sure and listen to her play!

There will be no call to worship via the Doxology, but it will make sense when we begin because Matt will be giving the announcements. There will also be some Christmas hymns and some special music!

The lesson this year will be on the most famous non-Christmas Christmas story. This is the story of Matthew 2 where the star appears in the east and the astronomers from the east travel west to Jerusalem to find and worship the King of the Jews. This event is only recorded in Matthew and so critics of the Bible claim it probably didn’t happen. I guess if their mother said “clean your room” just one time that probably didn’t happen either. LOL.

This event has received a lot of press and attempted explanations, especially of the star. I listened to Rick Larson again since in 2007 he published his The Star of Bethlehem mesmerizing DVD drama that authoritatively explains the star by natural phenomena using nine observations from Matthew 2 using star tracking software. Totally useless information and nothing new with Rick Larson, though he acts like he discovered it all. It has been around for decades and really goes back as far as Kepler in AD1603.

The real story is much more interesting than discussions about conjunction of stars and retrograde that may, and that’s a big “may,” have been observable for a few minutes very low on the horizon. At any rate, the real story in Matthew 2 describes a star that appears and disappears, moves south six miles and stops directly over one house. If that is a natural star then it is the most unnatural natural star anyone ever heard of. But the real story is more exciting. A supernatural star announces the birth of a supernatural person. Tons here to study. We will focus on 2:1-12 and go further if we have time.

Merry Christmas and love from us,
Jeremy