When I was in middle school I was given a telescope for Christmas.
I remember being in awe at the craters of the moon.
And then I found Jupiter and three of its moons.
One night I found Venus and couldn’t figure out what it was, so I started reading up on astronomy and figured it out, it always looks crescent shaped.
Sometimes I would just find a star and follow it across the sky, a piercing point of light slowly slipping across the night.
Other times I would find a star that I couldn’t see with the naked eye, that’s when I realized just how few of the stars I could see, the sky was full of so much that was out of view, out of sight, cloaked in darkness.
I never could find Mars or Saturn though, this pestered me.
Eventually that telescope went to my younger brother who lost a couple of its lenses and it ended up in my parent’s attic. The years passed. A couple of years ago we rescued it from their attic and Ben, my son, has it now, 25 years later.
About the time the telescope was passed to the third generation, there was an unusual convergence of several planets and I was finally able to find Mars and Saturn in the skies of Anderson with my son’s telescope.
It was one of those moments when years of waiting come to an end, and I got to share it with my family, on that old telescope, searching the stars for so much that is hidden.
Things hidden.
Hard to see.
The generations have searched, watching waiting.
Suddenly out in the open, plain as day, seen clearly.
God is up to something, something out on the edge of things, hidden to the eyes of most, something subversive, a movement to destabilize the empire of the world, God’s revolution is quietly, secretly gathering.
Dreams, star gazers from distant lands, the sky is disturbed by a strange light.
Words of a new king being born.
And Herod and his minions are afraid, and they plot violence and deception.
The wise men escape by night, hiding from the government, running for the border.
Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus escape as well, running to Egypt, running for the border as well.
And Herod’s soldiers arrive suddenly, and kill all the children of Bethlehem, a night of screaming and weeping.
The cover of darkness cloaks so much more than we can see, so much is out of view, out of sight as the minions of empire hunt down God’s revolution, like ole Pharaoh’s dogs chasing after Moses, always just missing him.
God is up to something.
A plan.
And the powerful people of the empire of this world are threatened by it.
It is happening out on the fringe of things where people watch the stars and listen to dreams. Out there on the border, a child runs back forth across it, God playing hide and seek with the violent and deceptive.
Waiting until it is time.
When all things will be made clear, bright as day.