Christmas Tree Cluster X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Clow, M.; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand
Numbers 24: 2–7, 15–17a
Psalm 25:3–8
Matthew. 21:23–27
From the beginning of human life on earth, it is understood that people gazed at the heavens to seek wisdom and knowledge. In his publication, The First Astronomers: How Indigenous Elders Read the Stars, Duane Hamacher writes of Australian aboriginal tribes who lived their everyday lives with enduring trust by what they observed through changing seasons and the movements of heavenly bodies. Hamacher also tells us, that with a fellow astronomer, he noted that in December of 2020 the planets Jupiter and Saturn reached a conjunction that had not been recorded since the time of Galileo in 1623. (pg. 86). It is believed by elders and wisdom teachers alike that such a spectacle similarly occurred in the heavens around the birth of Jesus as a herald to those searching for their Saviour..
Today, we celebrate this reminder of the Christmas star for all God has done for us down through the ages and will continue in eons ahead.
Janice Barnes