Let’s come out of Herod’s palace and follow the star . . .

Star has a central role in the story of Christmas as portrayed in the writing of Mathew. It is said to have guided magi to the manger. It is also portrayed as having waited patiently for the magi to come out of Herod’s palace in order to guide them to where they need to have gone.

Contemporary human knowledge attributes power with the ‘high and mighty’; revelation in God’s creation, as in the star, point the other way. It waits for the ‘wise’ men (sic!) to unlearn their folly and return back to an orientation that Power is and in the coming together of the vulnerable children, the nomads, the despised, single mothers, their allies, migrants, and all such of creation both in heaven and on earth.

Christmas, thus, poses a challenge both to the powerful that they are not invincible, and to those who need a deconstruction of their wisdom about Power – that it lies elsewhere and not where the world constructs it to be. The annual remembrance of the birth of Jesus (Christmas) calls us to take up the challenge to deconstruct our wisdom about power, and work on communities and all of creation – both in earth as also in the heavens – realise (their) Power.

It will be pertinent therefore for Christians to come out of the palaces of the powerful and follow the star; joining God’s movements of those alleged vulnerable, and also despised, whose joyful refrain echo the strains of everlasting songs of life-flourishing.

Merry Christmas! Come out, let’s follow the star! Let our year ahead be truly blessed!

Let’s have a Power Christmas . . . all year round.

Rev. Asir Ebenezer

General Secretary, NCCI