“Draw near to God and the Holy One will draw near to you…” (James 4.8a).
If you look southwest on the night of 21 December you’ll see what astronomers are calling the Great Conjunction of 2020. On that night, the brighter Jupiter will seem to absorb the lesser light of Saturn until they are indistinguishable from one another. Popularly, this event is being called the Christmas Star.
It’s thought by some the conjunction (a drawing near) of two or more planets was what sent the Magi on their way to see Jesus. Matthew, whose Gospel is the only one who records the event of The Star, is light on details regarding what those ancient astronomers saw. And while something like what we’ll see this Winter Solstice could have been The Star Matthew reports, it probably wasn’t this exact sight.
This doesn’t make it any less amazing. Jupiter and Saturn have been dancing with one another for months. Back in the spring they were about ten degrees (the width of your fist) from each other, but as the year drew on they drifted farther apart. Over the past several weeks, they’ve begun to draw together again. Every night, they have moved closer and closer to one another.
These two planets are not really drawing near to each other; it only appears so in our sky. Both planets lie on the opposite side of the sun from us; so, from where we sit, Saturn has “caught up” to Jupiter in their respective orbits. Orbits that are very different from one another, but allow them, on rare occasions, to appear as a single star in our sky.
In Jesus we declare that God has drawn near to us. While once we held the same orbit, we threw ourselves off balance, altered our gravities, and set ourselves into an erratic orbit around everything except the Divine. We weren’t out of God’s reach, but it seemed very much like the Holy One was far away. So, in Christ, God came to us, drew near across the stellar distances not just to appear close—as Jupiter and Saturn will—but to be close to us.
Maybe, like me, you have had moments in this year where the Divine has seemed far away. This year has brought me many times to asking if God had abandoned us, left us here to fend for ourselves.
But we have not been and never will be abandoned. All year, everything has been in motion just as it always is to bring us close to the One. Even if, as Jupiter and Saturn were earlier this year, it seemed the Holy One was far away from us, our paths were bringing us together.
In this season, we are invited to come close to the One who has been and will be near. Like Magi, we are called across the distance to draw near, moving ever closer in our orbits until we are engulfed by this greater light.
And, with our lights, we can shine even in the darkness.