Pastor Ron Jansen

The Morning Star * christ

 

Rev. 22:16: I am the Root and offspring of David, the bright Morning Star.

            I’m Venus, known as the morning star.  What an honor to be associated with the true and bright Morning Star, Jesus Christ.  Though I am actually a planet, I appear as the morning star in the east before sunrise or as the brightest evening star in the west after sunset.  When I set below the horizon, you can count on me to come again, as even as you can count on Jesus coming again.

            Jesus coming is what advent and Christmas are all about.  In Advent we read of Christ’s coming in power and glory.  “The sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”  Even I, Venus, will no longer shin e on that day.  I’ll not be needed.

            On that day the Son of Man will come in the clouds, the dead in Christ will rise, the living will be changed and all mankind will be gathered before His throne.  That’s the traditional emphasis of Advent-not Santa Claus, parties and Christmas trees, but his coming as judge meting out the wrath of God against sin and sinners.  Then, when you wonder where next to turn, the Mighty One does come, born as a helpless Baby, homeless, spending His first night in a crude shelter, sleeping in a manger.  He’s nursed at His Virgin Mother’s breast.  His body is wrapped in rags.  But where’s the gathering of the nations for this coming? A few shepherds straggle in.  Then, a year or two later some wise men, a few Gentile magicians, from Persia or Babylon arrive.  By the time they show up the little family is in a small house.  There’s probably not much in the house except for their gifts.  This is the coming of the Messiah, the Day of the Lord long foretold by the prophets?  Yes, in part.

Christ does promise to come in power and glory at the end of the age.  And He comes as a Baby in Bethlehem, the city of David.  In accordance with a Divine plan, a great census would bring Joseph, descendant of David and Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus, to Bethlehem to be born there.  Thus Jesus is born of the house and line of David, in the hometown of Israel’s greatest king.

But there’s more.  It was near Bethlehem that sheep destined for sacrifice in the temple were grazed.  It’s likely that the very sheep. The shepherds watched that night would be offered on the temple altar, their blood shed to placate the wrath of God against sinners.  Over the centuries thousands of sheep, bulls, goats, pigeons and doves, were slaughtered and burned on the altar as to appease God’s wrath against sin.

If the killing of animals saved sinners, there’d be no need for Christmas.  The sacrifices reminded the people of their sins and their need for the Savior, “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  On Calvary’s cross, the Lamb of Bethlehem died in your place that you might look forward to His coming on the last day and experience it with joy, even as a troubled soul looks forward to the dawn of a new day and the shining of the bright morning star.

There is more to Christ’s coming than Bethlehem, more than the cross, more than the last day.  He also comes through His word and sacraments into the hearts and lives of all who receive Him in faith.  The very same Christ through whom God created the world, the very same Jesus born in Bethlehem, the very same Lord who died on the cross, comes to you as you hear His word and believe its promises.

He comes in the sacraments, the holy mysteries He has given His church as the means of grace.  In Holy Baptism, the death of Jesus becomes your death, His burial becomes your burial and His resurrection becomes your resurrection.  In baptism, the power to live a new and upright life like that of Jesus becomes yours as water and word come together and you are joined to Him by faith.

In the Lord’s Supper, the coming of Christ continues to unfold.  As you partake of the Supper you remember that He has already comes-as a flesh and blood Baby born as the righteous Man He grew up to be, as the sacrificial Lamb whose body was pierced and whose blood was shed on the cross.  More than that, in a great mystery according to Jesus own institution, under forms of bread and wine, you receive Him personally.  In the simple act of eating and drinking, Jesus comes to you with all His gifts of forgiveness, righteousness and certain hope of heaven.

And so, the sacrament is not only a remembrance of things past.  It looks forward to His coming again at the end of the age.  Remember His word to the disciples as they ate and drank at the Last Supper? “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now until that day when I drink it anew with you in My Father’s Kingdom.

Though He came to Bethlehem as a Baby and as a sacrifice during Holy Week, and though he comes into human hearts through His word and sacraments, all is still not perfect.  All about us there is still mourning and crying and pain.  There is still death and destruction.  There are still floods, earthquakes and famines.  The animal is still red in tooth and claw.  There is still in justice, poverty, racism, war, and yes, slavery.  There are still villains who rule by tyranny, corruption and violence.

But not for long!  “Behold, I am coming soon,” says the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is time to repent and wash your robes, to return to the calling and gifts of your It is time to put aside everything your baptism contradicts: drug and alcohol addiction, sexual immorality, murder, idolatry and deceit.  But you won’t be just giving up something.  Christ promises to fill the void with something better, the water of life.  “Come! Whoever is thirsty, let him come; whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the Water of Life.”

The writers of scripture pile of up the words, but words can only come close to describes the wonders in store for those prepared by faith for Christ’s coming.  “The dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them.”  What will it be like to dwell with God?  Can you imagine that God himself, “will wipe every tear from eyes…?   That there will be no more mourning or death or crying or pain?”  Isaiah adds, that feeble hands and knees will be steadied.  The fearful will be made strong, the blind will see, the deaf hear, and the mute tongue will shout for joy.

Jesus the bright Morning Star comes!  As surely as you see me, Venus, shining at dawn or twilight, it will happen.  You k now where to look for His coming in all the ways Scripture reveals: at Bethlehem and Calvary, in Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and at the end of the age when He comes in the clouds with power and great glory.  This Christmas time you can see Him, with the special gift of faith.  Peer through the lens of faith and you’ll see Jesus, your Bright Morning Star.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Bright Morning Star, come into my heart today. Come to me as Bethlehem’s Child.  Come to me in Your word as I hear and believe.  Come to me in the promises of my baptism and with your forgiveness and righteousness in the sacrament of the altar.  Come to me at the last day and take me home to be with You forever.  In Your name I pray. Amen.        

 

The Promised Star

My wife, Becky, wrote the play posted below.  We used it in the service this morning as a readers theater which included participants ranging from high school students to preschoolers.  This was the first "children's Christmas program" at Immanuel Chapel in many years.  The play took the place of the sermon or better, was the sermon.  About 12 young people participated.  After the service we gave each participant a Christmas bag. Becky said the high school students were more excited over the chrimas bag than the younger kids.

The Promised Star

Stars each holding a small flash light are scattered around the sanctuary with Star 1 speaking from the center of the church.  Younger children will sit by a tent in the front of the church and act out certain parts of the play. 

Lights are turned off and stars’ flashlights are turned on!

Star 1:  “My name is M13.”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “That means she is in the constellation Hercules.”

 

Star 1:  “Yes, Abraham looked up one summer night and saw me.”

 

Stars 4 & 5: “He probably thought you were just a small, dim star.”

 

Star 1:  “If Abraham had a good pair of binoculars, he would have seen me as a tiny cotton ball.  But with a large telescope, he would have realized I was actually a glove-shaped cluster of thousands of stars.”

 

Stars 4 & 5:   “There are thousands of globular clusters spread through the Milky Way Galaxy.”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “With just your eyes, you can see about 2000 stars on a clear night.”

 

Star 1: “Astronomers estimate that there are billions of stars just in our galaxy alone, and a billion more galaxies besides my galaxy.   I can’t add up the total number of stars in the universe.”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “Let’s just say the number of stars is INCOMPREHENSIBLY ENORMOUS!”

 

Song, Page  369          Verse 1 sung by Pastor Jansen.  The small children enter through the back and walk down the aisle as Pastor Jansen sings the verse:  one child dressed as Abraham, one as Sarah and the others as shepherds.

(A tent is placed in the center and the children stand in front of the tent and say together the following verse.)

 

“God tested Abraham, Genesis Chapter 22.”

(The children sit down in front of the tent.)

 

Star 1:  “The story begins when God calls Abram to take a trip.”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “ Not just a trip to the store.”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “More like a trip to the moon!”

 

Star 1:  “Abram was to take his family”

 

Stars 4 & 5:  “And Lot”

 

Star 1: “and Lot.  God said to Abram, ‘Leave your country and your people and go to the Land I will show you.’  Of course this land was not just any land but is known today as the Fertile Crescent.  At that time, the ancestors of some of you were living as stone age tribesmen in the forests of Europe.  Abram and the People of the Fertile Crescent already had written language,”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “metalworking skills”

 

Stars: 6 & 7:  “accounting procedures and published codes of law”

 

Stars 4 & 5:  “Knowledge of the stars and well trained and equipped armies”

 

Star 1:  “In fact, the city of Jericho was already thousands of years old in Abram’s day.  They had it all, so to speak.  And that was the problem.  They had everything except the true knowledge of God and the way of salvation.”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “God said,  “Abram leave with your family”

 

(The little children will now walk back down the aisle and up again to sit in front of the tent,  while the choir sings verse 2.)

 

Star 1: “Which brings us back to Abram’s big problem.  Not only did God call Abram to move from one place to another, He gave PROMISES to Abram!”

 

Stars 4 & 5: “ God said, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you,.” Genesis, chapter 12”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “God said, “A son coming from your own body will be your heir.”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “God said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars.”

 

Stars 4 & 5:  “As If a man could count that many!”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “God said,  “So shall your off springs be!”

 

Star 1:  “Abram even had a name to match the grandeur of the promises, ‘Abram’ means ‘exalted father’. He was rich.”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “He was powerful!”

 

Stars 4 & 5:  “He was respected!”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “He was feared!”

 

Star 1:  “Indeed, Abram was seen as a father figure to his relatives and his servants.”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “Of course, it was God’s joke.”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “Abram was a very old man!”

 

Stars 4 & 5:  “Married to a very old woman!”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “They had not one single child!”

 

Star 1:  “Thirteen more years passed.  By now Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah was 90.  The only thing that changed in the thirteen years was his name Abram to Abraham. If there are degrees of impossibility, it was now even more impossible for the promises to be fulfilled.”

 

(Children at the tent will stand and announce:

“The impossible happened; Isaac was born!!!!”   and the song will be sung”

Stars:  Allelu,  Allelu,  Allelu,  Alleluia,

Children:   Will Stand and  sing:   “Praise Ye The Lord!”  Children will sit down

Stars”  Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia

Children: Will Stand and  sing:   “Praise Ye The Lord!”  Children stay standing.

Children:  Children will continue with “Praise Ye The Lord!”  Children will sit down.

Stars:  Al-le-luia

Children will stand and sing, “Praise Ye The Lord!”  Children sit

Stars:  Al-le-luia

Children will stand and sing, “Praise Ye The Lord!”  Children sit

Stars: Al-le-luia

Everyone:  Praise Ye The Lord!!!!

 

The choir will sing the third verse as one little boy walks down to the tent, Isaac.

 

Star 1:  “All Abraham’s hopes, indeed the hopes of the whole world for being included in God’s Blessing, now centered only in Isaac.  If anything should happen to him, there would be no promised land.”

 

Stars 2 & 3: “no nations!”

 

Stars 4 & 5: “no kings”

 

Stars 6 & 7: “no people of God!”

 

Star 1: “No Savior!  Oh, how absolutely essential it was for the future of all of you humans that Isaac live!  Yet, it was this miracle child that God told Abraham to sacrifice.”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “How Unfair!”

 

Stars 4& 5:  “How Ridiculous!”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “How Absurd!”

 

Star 1:  “God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and to the region of Moriab, Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering!     What would you have done?”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “Change religions!”

 

Stars 4 & 5:  “Find a kinder God!”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “Forget about it!”

 

Star 1:  “But God always keeps his Promises.  Everything God had done was impossible.  God could bring life to a child whom Abraham sacrificed.  God gave a lamb to replace Isaac.  And the rest of story you know or do you?”

 

Stars 2 & 3:  “When you have sinned and deserve death,”

 

Stars 4 & 5:  “When you have not the slightest hope,”

 

Stars 6 & 7:  “At the last moment!”

 

Star 1:  “God will provide a substitute Sacrifice for you:  His only Son, Jesus Christ, descendant of Abraham, to die in your place on the altar of the cross.    Please join us in singing the last verse on page 369.”

 

After the verse:

 

Star 1:  “Amen”

The Fallen Star * Lucifer

 

“How you have fallen from the heavens, morning star, son of the dawn!  You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations.”  Isaiah 14:12

            I am Lucifer, son of the morning.  You expected a red suit, horns, a forked tail, goatee and pitchfork?  I’m a master at disguises, but I never used that one.

I’m also creative. I create alternative points of view and lifestyles.  You see, I’m not that different from Jesus, am I?  I’ll explain.  The Son of God was born a flesh and blood son of Mary.    Even now God does his work through flesh and blood humans, like you, for instance.   I too use humans being to do my work.  However, there was that delightful time in the garden when I presented myself as the most handsome snake one could ever imagine.  Oh yes, I know many people are afraid of snakes ever since.  Too bad for the snake, I say.

 Did you know that I am angel?   I’m one of the myriads of angels God created to serve Him and you.  That was the problem, I’d rather be served.  Does God really need angels?  If he’s all powerful, and everywhere, then he could get along fine without us; instead of assigning us to protect human beings.

I told my companions I could do practically anything he could do, and I could do it better.  A lot of angels agreed with me.  So I challenged God and thousands upon thousands of angels joined me.  What a battle.  Think of bombs bursting, volcanoes erupting, hurricanes screaming, floods, tornadoes and armies rampaging, - multiply them a million times over and you might have a slight idea of the spiritual forces unleashed in the great war of heaven.

However, due to a few technical difficulties and a miscalculation or two, my angels and I were asked to leave.  The bible says we were “cast down,” “hurled to the earth.”  Why quibble about semantics?  I must say my old friend, the archangel Michael used excessive force.  He didn’t have to hurl us to earth.

However, this temporary setback, defeat is such a strong word, wasn’t so bad.   God made us angels and angels don’t die.  Therefore, we had practically forever for strategic planning.  We moved our base of operations to earth and carried on.  It’s been victory after victory ever since.

The first battle was a stunning success.  Adam and Eve caved in with practically no effort on my part.  They were beautiful, young, free and stupid.  Yes stupid.  They literally couldn’t tell the difference between good and evil.

“The garden is all yours,” God told them.  “Eat anything you want, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  “You’ll die if you do.”  I ventured a different opinion.  “You’ll be like God knowing good and evil.  “No-o-o, you won’t die.”  After they ate, they did know good and evil.  They kept right on living didn’t they?  930 years of Adam.  Not quite forever, but close enough.

What astounding results.  Adam and Eve began hiding from God, they were ashamed of their bodies, one son murdered another.  All creation groaned under the weight of being unable to hit God’s target of perfection.  Lust, greed, murder strife, deceit, gossip, slander, insolence, arrogance, thievery, disobedience were rampant.  Talk about a life-changing experience!  Every human being was changed for the worse and it would all end in death.  It was great.

I was among Noah’s neighbors, urging them to laugh at him as he built the ark.  They all drowned.  What fun!  I was there at the tower of Babel encouraging them to storm the gates of heaven.  Now nations and tribes can’t speak with each other.  Isn’t it wonderful?  I was there when Moses came down with the Ten Commandments and found people worshiping the calf.   Moses had hundreds of his own people slaughtered.  What a show that was.

You know of some of my more recent successes: Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden, to name a few.

There is just one troublesome person I have yet to control.  Heaven knows I’ve tried.  I knew him long before His birth in Bethlehem.  He already existed when I was created.  In fact, I and all things were made through Him.  Yes, I mean Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.

My rebellion wasn’t a surprise to God.  He, His Son, and the Holy Spirit had a plan for dealing with me before I was created.  They foresaw my intent and agreed that the Son would come to earth as a human being to gain the final victory.  What gall!  Earth and humanity were mine!

I opposed Him at every stage.  I put it into the mind of Herod to kill the baby Jesus.  Those so called Wise Men messed it up by not telling Herod where the child could be found.  Never mind.  There was plenty of grief in Bethlehem when Herod slaughtered the infants.    I enjoy seeing grief without comfort.

When Jesus began his ministry he spent forty days inthe wilderness, neither eating nor drinking.  The moment was just right.  I offered some suggestions, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”  “Show your trust in God.  Jump down from the temple.”  “Worship me and all the kingdoms of the world will be yours.”  But Jesus kept quoting the Bible.  What a bore.

I didn’t give up.  Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was.  Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Then Jesus told of his coming suffering and death.  Peter jumped in, “Never Lord, this shall not happen to You.”  I could have kissed him.  But Jesus missed his opportunity.  Instead, he told my unwitting accomplice Peter, “Get behind me Satan.”  Ach, I had lost another pivotal battle.

Still I didn’t give up.  I tried to break his heart at the Last Supper with His friend Judas, the betrayer.  As He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, I flooded his mind with images of humiliation and suffering.  He agonized.  He sweat drops of blood.  Then, He said, “Not as I will, but as You will.”  Who is this guy?

You know the rest.  Trials, whipping, thorns, cross, empty tomb.  All that God had planned from the beginning, Jesus did.  Once again, I lost.  Now, if you thought I would give up, then you don’t know me.  There’s plenty I can do.  I can try to keep you from believing in Him.  I can sow doubt in your mind about His care and love.  I can let you wallow in self-pity.  I can make you question whether the cross and resurrection ever did anything for you.

Today you have Holy Communion.   I hate that word, Holy.  It’s so God-like.  And Communion smacks of everyone getting together.  Conflict and division suit my purposes much better.  I don’t want to hear about everyone being renewed in mind and spirit in the body of Christ.  I’d rather influence your mind, spirit and body.  And don’t remind me about being baptized in Christ.  That puts me off.

One last matter, He said he was coming quickly.  So where is He?  If he were really coming, don’t you think He’d already be here?  With the world the way it is, you’d think He’d be here now doing something about it, wouldn’t you?  But where is He?  You don’t really believe that Second Coming stuff, do you?

Well, it’s been good talking to you, but I have people to see, things to do and places to go.  I’ll be back.  Trust me.

Prayer: Yes, Lord Jesus, we truly do believe in the promise of Your coming.  Though Satan tempts us, we know You are truly the Son of God, our only savior.  We know that the enemy has no real power, that he’s a liar and a murderer no matter what disguise he wears.  Through your word and sacrament, keep us always in faith, that we might know our sins are forgiven and that eternal life is ours.  In Your name, Lord Jesus, we pray.  Amen.   

                  

    

 

             

The Perfect Star * Creation

This sermon is adapted from  s seies offered by Creative Communications for Advent & Christmas.  The series, by Rev. Donald H. Neidigk, is entitled The Stars Tell the Story.

“He also made the stars.  God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.”  Genesis 1:16b-17

  Stars and Christmas go together, don’t they?  You recall the star that guided the Wise Men to the birthplace of the savior.  Far to the east they looked up one night and saw it brightly beckoning them to Bethlehem.  But that’s just one star.  Stars are scattered throughout the pages of scriptures.  You find stars in the very beginning.  You find me, Polaris, on the fourth day of creation.

I was one of those vast arrays of celestial diamonds the Creator set in place to separate night from day and give light to the good earth.  And it was good.  Night and day, sea and land, sun, moon, and stars, birds, fish, creeping and crawling things, livestock, and humans made in God’s image all of it good.  Indeed, God looked upon all he had made and it was “very good.”

That includes me, Polaris, the North Star.  Travelers have relied on me for centuries.  Many a sailor has suffered through a stormy night at sea, awaiting a break in the clouds that he might catch a glimpse of me shining his way home.

Doubtless, you’ve seen me many times.  I’m not hard to find.  As you look to the northern sky, you’ll see the constellation Usra Major, the Great Bear.   You might know it as the Big Dipper.  The two bright stars on the dipper’s cup point to me, the one bright star that never seems to move while all through the night the other stars revolve around me.  There you’ll find me, less than one degree off true north.  I was a part of what God made; part of the “very good.”  How could it bb otherwise?  God Himself is the greatest good, perfect in all ways, utterly holy.  Everything He made and sustained bore the stamp of His perfection.  You might say that a definition of sin is thinking that God’s work and His way is not perfect, that someone else knows better.  Lucifer, another  star whom you’ll meet next week, a star once perfect but now corrupt and twisted, thought he knew better.

It was his sin that made the Christmas story necessary.  You see, sin never happens in isolation.  It always involves someone else.  In Lucifer’s case, it involved legions of angels who joined him in rebellion against God.  But it was futile.  There is no power greater than that of the omnipotent and holy Creator.  Losing the battle, Lucifer and his cohorts were banished from heaven.  They invaded earth where Lucifer enlisted Adam and Eve in the rebellion.

Adam and Eve had everything to lose and nothing to gain, a perfect marriage, a perfect home, a perfect relationship with God, and a perfect future-it was all theirs.  They alone had the potential for living “happily ever after.”  But Lucifer duped them into questioning God’s perfect plan for them.

God had given them all they needed for eternal life in Paradise.  He made only one requirement of them-don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the center of the garden.  If you do you will die. Lucifer using half truths and false promises convinced them they would not die.  Instead, he promised, you’ll become like God, knowing good and evil.

Adam and Eve fell for it.  They took the fruit and ate.  And their perfect world along with the livestock and birds, plants and fish, sun, moon, and stars, and me, Polaris crashed.

There was no sound when the crash came.  Things looked pretty much the same.  But nothing was.  Adam and Eve hid from God.  Out of shame they put on clothes.  They lied to their Creator.  It didn’t work.  He knew what they had done and where they were hiding.  In grace he replaced their pitiful garments with skins.  Mercifully, God drove them from the garden lest they eat of the tree of life and spend eternity in the quagmire of sin.

Eventually, death entered their once perfect world.  Their son Cain murdered his brother, Abel.  In time, though Adam and Eve lived much longer than you and I, succumbed to death.  Plants that formerly made the garden beautiful became their enemy.  Tilling the soil became a battle against weeds.  The love of man and woman, leading so naturally and beautifully to the birth of children, became the bloody agony and sometimes death of childbirth.

Animals, once living in harmony, now struggled against one another.  Some species survived, others vanished.  Gentle rains became deadly floods.  The breeze that carried seed and pollen became screaming hurricanes and roaring tornadoes.

In the heavens, stars exploded, others collapsed.  Whole galaxies collided.  Even I, Polaris, the mariner’s friend, have but a brief moment to shine before I too am snuffed out.

Endlessly, the perfection of God’s creation would deteriorate and decay, order would become disorder, and the beauty of life would become the corruption of death.  Endlessly that is, without the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, the Son of God, the Bright Morning Star.

You are privileged to have Holy Scripture.  You can read yourself of God’s power and holiness, his perfection and kindness.  But what of the rest God’s fallen children?  What will they read?

They have nothing but me and my companions in the natural world.  We mark light and darkness, wet seasons and dry seasons, summer and winter.  Much can be learned from us.  Would you learn of the glory of God?  Look to me and my companions!  Would you learn that God is the Maker and sustainer of everything   that is made?  Look to Me!  Would you learn that the Almighty is invisible?  Look to me!  I can tell you all this and more.

I Polaris, and indeed all of nature, have taught you much.  But should you learn every truth that we wordlessly proclaim, you would hear only half the story.  I can tell you of the fall and the calamity that followed.  I can tell you of death and destruction wrought by sin.  In response, you could fall on your knees and cry out to God for mercy, but you would still be lost.

You would be lost forever except for the rest of the story that is found only in Scripture.  There in the pages of the bible, you learn that God, who made you and me, the God whom you have turned your back on, loves you!

God’s eternal Son Jesus Christ, through whom we were made, has been sent to save you.  He came in the quiet obscurity of birth to a human mother in Bethlehem.  He joined Himself to a human body like yours in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  He was born as you were born, feels all that you feel, lives where you live, suffered as you suffer and died as you die.

Doing all this he put his holy life in place of your sinful life.  His holy life becomes your holy life.  His cross becomes your cross.  His resurrection to life becomes your resurrection to life.  In Jesus Christ, all that God requires of you is done.  By faith in Him all your sin is forgiven; there is peace at last between you and your Maker.

Well, it’s getting dark and I, Polaris, must be about what I was placed in the sky to do, guiding the traveler home.  However, I can only take you part way.  I can get you anywhere in the northern hemisphere.  I can tell you about God, my Maker and yours.  But I can’t bring you to Him.  That’s the job of another, Jesus Christ, the Bright Morning Star.  Look to Him, and He’ll get you to your heavenly home, back to Paradise.