The star preceded them along the path,
they walked as it traced out the highest sky---
they followed in direction of its light.
Herod did not think he would need a spy,
and only one child sacrificed to wrath.
But on that spangled, constellated night,
the star kept to its transit---just like those
too-bookish men. A kind of parallel:
it journeyed through the Heavens, they on earth---
all set in motion to announce a birth,
God's own choice candidate to rule this nation.
(But did He count on Herod's rage?---who knows?)
They found the house; then (as if to dispel
their doubts of place), the star stopped at its station.
Starward
[jlc]
Author's Notes/Comments:
The astronomical information contained herein is based upon Michael R. Molnar's book, "The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi". The suggestion that the Magi's journey and the star's normal transit were parallel pilgrimages is my own conclusion. To those who, reading Matthew's nativity account, believe that the star descended into the lower atmosphere in order to become a floating beacon to lead the pilgrims to the house in Bethlehem, I would offer this question: If a beacon that powerful had descended, why would Herod have invited the Magi to return to tell him the location of the Child? Could he not have just sent his own people to follow the same beacon? And, to those who believe it was actually a guidance system, I would point out that it failed to guide them to the right place the first time and, in so doing, led them to Jerusalem----which inadvertently led to the massacre of the innocent children. The very idea that God would construct a faulty guidance system that then led to the murder of children is, in itself, blasphemously ludicrous. The fact that it did not lead them to Bethlehem first eliminates the theoretical guidance system; therefore, apparent motion of the star must have had some other meaning. It does: a double meaning as both a parallel to the pilgrimage of the Starwatchers, and then as an allegorical parallel to Christ's post-resurrection activity in the past, now, and in the future.
you say they were too bookish..
but was it not their knowledge which led them
to know the star
and were they not the first Gentiles to worship Jesus?
thank you for a beautiful poem
I missed this question eleven
I missed this question eleven years ago (no disrespect intended), and would like to address it now. I did not say they were too bookish. I applaud their scholarship, which probably led them to be able to interpret the star's presence. The speaker in the poem says they are too bookish. And that description is meant more to show his ignorance than to state anything about the Magi.
Starward