What if there is a Star in the Sky with your name on it!
The Sunday after Christmas is called Epiphany Sunday in the Church’s calendar. The Greek word epiphania means, manifestation. It also means an aha moment or a moment of discovery. So the original epiphany was a moment of discovery for the wise men from the east about who Jesus was. It is also about the manifestation of Jesus to the outside world.
Bible scholars believe that it is a symbolic story rather than a literal one. For example, how can humans on donkeys travel across nations using a moving star as their personal GPS?
In the ancient world, stars in the sky meant light, illumination, and guidance. In this case, the star in the sky was pointing to Jesus, the light of the world. That star illuminated the minds of the magi and in that light they discovered Jesus. They discovered God, not in the high heavens but as a child in the trenches of society, as a refugee in a manger. Jesus was literally, divinity in diapers.
Think about that for a moment. The Magi sees a star in the sky. It would have been logical for that small star in the sky to point to a bigger star in the sky representing God. It would have been a perfect opportunity to show us that God lives above us and beyond us — up in the sky.
But the magi had an epiphany, an aha moment of sudden realization — that God is to be found in lowly places and in humble surroundings, in the encounter with a human being born of humans like Mary and Joseph.
Discovering that you are a present-day, localized, physical manifestation of the Christ-child of 2000 years ago, should be your epiphany. Seeing every human around you as bearing the divine image should be epiphany 2.0
A book that helped me to discover this truth is called Discover the Power Within You: A Guide to the Unexplored Depths Within, by Eric Butterworth.
According to the author, there is only one way under the sun by which a man can achieve the realization and unfoldment of his own innate divinity and that is by bringing about a radical and permanent change in his own consciousness.
Notice those four words: Realization, Unfoldment, Innate Divinity. Before you can unfold, you have to realize that at your core, your are divine. Many people have not realized that.
Most people are so entrenched in their belief that they are bad. That they are wretched sinners fighting with an evil twin inside and thereby, unworthy of God. That is true, partially, but we are also created in the image and likeness of God. We are temples of the Holy Spirit. We are called to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect.
The author uses the analogy of a caterpillar and butterfly to describe this dark and light side our our lives.
It is obvious that the caterpillar and the butterfly live in entirely different worlds, and at the outset, no one would ever say that a caterpillar is a butterfly or that a butterfly is a caterpillar. The caterpillar is fat, heavy, slimy and ground-bound. A butter fly is light, beautiful and heaven-bound. And yet, we know that the caterpillar and the butterfly are simply different levels of expression of the same entity.
The caterpillar can fly, not as a caterpillar, but only as a butterfly. He has the potential, but that potential has to be realized and manifested. In the same way, you can be like Jesus, behave like Jesus and do the things Jesus did, but not as the man or woman you are now. You have to be transformed, or born again into a higher state of consciousness.
And that higher state of consciousness is that — you are innately divine, you are part of God, you are god with a small g — your weakness and unworthiness notwithstanding.
A caterpillar looked up and saw a colorful butterfly flying around. He shook his head and said ruefully: I can never do that. They will never get me up in one of those beautiful contraptions: Yes, the caterpillar just cannot get up in flight. Yet, as the caterpillar changes its embodiment, it enters a new world. Suddenly there is a new set of principles at work and he releases a whole new potentiality.
As fallible humans, we think of all kinds of limitations. We will retreat into our sinfulness and say, there is no way we can do what Jesus did. Yet the truth is that Jesus wants us to do what he did and more.
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”(John 14:12)
Please believe that with every fiber of your being.
Paul says to the Christians in Colosse: “Christ is in you, your hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27)
Paul is saying that you have the potential to be a glorious human being, when you realize and manifest the Christ in you.
So the difference between Jesus and us is a difference in degree, not in essence. Jesus and us are cut from the same divine cloth. The difference is the discovery and manifestation of our divinity.
So on this feast of epiphany, remember that just as there was a star in the sky pointing towards Jesus in the manger, there is a star in the sky pointing towards you. There is a star in the sky with your name engraved on it. Believing that truth could transform your life.
I know there are commercial and superficial ways of naming a star after you. For example for $19.95 you can get a certificate with your name on it from the International Star Registry. Or if you are in the field of television, radio, sports or entertainment, and you have $75000 to spare for a sponsorship fee, you can get a star named on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. So far, only 2765 people have been able to do that.
But what if there is a star in the sky already named for you? What if that star is the source, symbol and manifestation of the light that is in you?
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself” said Carl Sagan.
Elements that make up our bodies such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, were forged in the cores of stars through nuclear fusion.
Poet and Physicist Alan Lightman reminds us that we are literally, borrowed stardust:
“If you could tag each of the atoms in your body and follow them backward in time, through the air that you breathed during your life, through the food that you ate, back through the geological history of the Earth, through the ancient seas and soil, back to the formation of the Earth out of the solar nebular cloud, and then out into interstellar space, you could trace each of your atoms, those exact atoms, to particular massive stars in the past of our galaxy. At the end of their lifetimes, those stars exploded and spewed out their newly forged atoms into space, later to condense into planets and oceans and plants and your body at this moment.”
So, go out side your house, look up the night sky, and find that star that is named for you, in God’s glorious galaxy. Gaze at it gratefully, claim it, and experience on a deeper level your cosmic connection to the entire universe, and your interdependence on all that there is.
It should be a ground-shifting, mind-bending and heart-pounding experience, evoking within you a sense of humility, awe, and a recognition of the divine, in both the microscopic and macroscopic aspects of creation.
The awareness that our very existence on planet earth is supported and sustained by the very same creative force that churns the oceans and spins the galaxies, should stir up within us a cosmic epiphany of seismic proportions.
As poet Chelan Harkin reminds us, we don’t need a special promotion in this great life, to be deemed worthy and blessed.
You came here with 5 stars
attached to your every movement
and word and breath.
The cosmos are in ceaseless applause
of your existence at all.
So, instead of waiting for God to give you a five-star rating for your life, after you die, realize that you are a star now — a manifestation of love and light.
Epiphany of that radiating light is the best guarantee for a radiant life.
Revel in the mystery of your transcendence as a twinkling star in the night sky and your immanence as a source of light, right where you are!
Question:
Will the revelation and discovery of a star in the sky with your name on it, make any difference in your life?