They weren’t kings. We don’t know their names. There may or may have been three of them. It’s possible that they rode on – or led – camels. But what we do know is this: they weren’t Jews, they came from the East, they brought valuable gifts, and – eventually – they were able to present them and pay the homage befitting a new crown prince. And then, having, we are told, “returned home by a different route”, the Magi vanish from the pages of the Bible, never to be heard of again. So what have I forgotten? Oh yes: they followed a star.

There have been many ingenious and detailed explanations as to what the Magi’s star might have been: a comet, a nova or exploding star which flared up for a time and then faded, a particular alignment of planets – we simply don’t know although some suggestions do seem more credible than others. There are however two aspects of this star which I’d like to scotch right at the outset. The first is that it wasn’t hanging over Jesus’ birthplace as Mary and Joseph bent over the manger and the shepherds pushed open the door; it’s quite clear that the Magi arrived months, even a year or two, later, by which time the Holy Family were (one hopes) comfortably ensconced in a house and Jesus was possibly a rambunctious toddler rather than a baby. The other aspect is one I mentioned at Christmas: I don’t believe that this star blazed out in the sky, outdazzling all the other stars. For the Magi were astrologers, they knew the night sky like the back of their hands. The change they saw in it may well have been invisible to untrained observers: but it was enough to send them on their quest.

Most, if not all, of us gathered here would be very sceptical about the notion of a star being a bearer or portent of news. We are modern people who have some basic scientific knowledge of how the universe works so we’d say, “Don’t be silly; the stars are governed by Red Shift and Newtonian Laws of Motion and the mathematics of relativity and all the rest of it; they are also a very long way away. It’s ludicrous to think that their apparent position has any relation to earthly events”.

But Matthew’s readers wouldn’t have seen things in that way, as a belief in heavenly signs was common. For instance the Latin poet Virgil, in his famous “Aeneid”, reports that a star guided Aeneas to the place where Rome was to be founded. That was written several centuries before Jesus; but the historian Josephus, writing after Jesus (but still in the first century), speaks of a star that stood over Jerusalem and of a comet that stayed put for a whole year as the Romans fought over and ultimately destroyed the city. Particularly widespread was the notion that the birth and deaths of emperors or kings were foretold by heavenly omens: for instance Nero was terrified when a comet appeared, as this was believed to predict the death of a person of great importance – he played things safe by executing some of the Roman nobles, hoping that the gods would take note and spare his own life. So, while we may ‘pooh-pooh’ the story of the Bethlehem star announcing the birth of a new Jewish king (and, by the way, also speaking of Herod’s attempt to kill him), the original readers of this Gospel would have thought it perfectly natural.

There’s actually rather more involved in this story of the star than we may have realised; I’m afraid I’ll need to be a wee bit technical to explain it. You know of course that the Wise Men came from “the East”; but you probably don’t know that the word that’s used for the “East”– anatole – really means “the rising,” that is, the rising of the sun. Now that’s a word which would have ‘clicked’ with the Greek-speaking Jewish Christians for whom this Gospel was first written. For they would have linked it to our Old Testament reading, which says, “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you”. Isaiah’s vision of salvation is that people of all nations will be drawn by and to God’s light. I’ll come back to that thought later.

But this isn’t all, as the same word, or a similar one, occurs elsewhere in the Old Testament. In Numbers 24:17 we read of “a star that will rise out of Jacob”, a verse which was regarded as a prophecy of the Messiah. It’s easy to see how a star could become a symbol for him, so the star of Bethlehem can be taken as a sign that Messiah has now arrived. Equally a passage in Isaiah 8 talks about God’s light shining on the people who dwell in darkness – you’ll know the reading from carol services. Matthew takes this up and applies it to Jesus, after his temptations and as he is about to commence his ministry; Luke says something very similar when he talks of Jesus being “the dawn (or sunrise) from on high” that will give light (an ‘epiphany’ or ‘revelation’) to everyone who is currently sitting in the dark shadow of death.

I’m sure we all know two passages from John’s Gospel. One is Jesus saying that he was “the light of the world”, the other – again familiar from carol services – is the section which speaks of the light for all people coming into the world, not being overcome by darkness but often (and sadly) being completely ignored. Unlike Matthew, John doesn’t mention the Bethlehem star, but this theme of Jesus himself being God’s light is a prominent one in his Gospel. It returns in Revelation, often believed to also have been written by John, where Jesus twice calls himself “the bright morning star”.

I’ve already mentioned Isaiah’s vision of salvation, with people of all nations being drawn by, and to, God’s light. That was a remarkable idea for a Jewish prophet who, at a time when each nation had its own set of deities, would have thought of the Bible’s God as an exclusively Hebrew possession; it would still have been a difficult proposition for Matthew’s readers to get their heads around, five or so centuries later.

Yet here, at the start of his Gospel, we read of foreigners, adherents of a non-Jewish religion, being drawn by the star to worship Jesus. And then, at the Gospel’s end, with Jesus preparing to ascend to heaven, we hear his last command: “Go to all nations and make disciples”. We see the Magi fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy as a divine force draws them towards Bethlehem; we see Jesus reversing it as he flings his followers in every direction with the charge to proclaim his Good News. To use scientific language, Isaiah’s vision was centripetal – “All nations will come to the light” while Jesus’ command is centrifugal – “You must go and take my light to every nation in the world”. It’s because people in the past have taken that command seriously that we – few of us Jewish and none of us living in Palestine! – can be here today.

People still study and look for meanings in the stars today – although I suspect that most folk who read their horoscope in the newspaper do so with a large pinch of salt; they aren’t likely to use it as guidance to start an arduous and uncertain journey that might last for several months. It seems that God spoke to these pagan men in a way they could understand – which begs the intriguing question of how he might communicate with people today who don’t read the Bible, don’t speak his language and never go to church. That’s something to think about.

But I must finish by saying that Christians don’t need a star to guide us, because we believe we’ve seen the greatest Star of all time, Jesus, and because we have his Spirit within us, giving us inner light and direction. Through our words and deeds, our attitudes and actions, we want to be people who gleam brightly for Jesus, acting as beacons or reflectors of God’s True Light. For that’s a light which our world in these dark days desperately needs to see and be drawn to for hope.