Cindy K

I grew up in an area settled by the Moravians (missionaries that Count Zinzendorf sent to America and the West Indies) who used the Christmas story and the Star of Bethlehem as an evangelical tool.  The town of Bethlehem, PA where my husband grew up has a start of light on the mountain above the town that they light at Christmas time and during special events throughout the year.  I was amazed when I started to encounter evangelical Christians who taught of the evils of Christmas, not because of the commercialization of it but because they thought that Scripture condemned it.  I was quite stunned.  It did remind me of talking with Jehovah’s Witnesses about holidays, and it still grieves my heart.

I don’t know if anyone has read about some of the information about the origins of the Zodiac (“circle of animals”) as another depiction of the Gospel that was supposedly told to Enoch by Adam.  Henry Morris published a small book on his studies and D. James Kennedy did a huge series on it in the early eighties.  (My favorite thing about what Kennedy shared was that the name of the star that marks the  foot of Orion.  It’s named “Rigel” which translates in many ancient languages as “THE FOOT THAT CRUSHETH.”  He identified this as a reference to the proto evangelian in Genesis 3:15.)

To the best of my recollection, Kennedy said that the Star of Bethlehem appeared in the sheaths of wheat held by the virgin, Virgo. The star that shown so brightly was in an area in those sheathes, where a child is seated upon the lap of a king.  The name of that star, in several ancient languages, (or perhaps it was the name of that child on the king’s lap ? I don’t quite remember) was called “the anointed one.”  He states that this is why and how the magi were able to understand just who Jesus really was.  They knew to look for the Anointed One who was born of a virgin.

And I don’t know what significance that has on all this other than this:  As I often look up in the winter sky to see the Orion constellation — probably the easiest one to identify in the sky — I look up at Rigel and remember that God has promised that though mankind has been bruised by sin, God came Himself to crush the head of sin.  And yet a little while, these temporary and light afflictions will cease and shall not compare to the glory that shall be revealed in those who believe in Jesus.