Pastoral Letter

How many points on a star? No, I hadn’t really thought about it much either until I put the words "Christmas Star" into an internet search engine (don’t worry if you don’t understand what this is!!), and one of the first results I got was the church in East Anglia that last year had to take down its 5 pointed star at the top of the steeple because someone objected and said it promoted witchcraft (pentangles and all that rubbish).

If you look at a Christmas stable picture, in either classic art or modern Christmas cards, you will nearly always see a star; just count how many points and you will be amazed how much they vary. The more usual is a six-pointed star, the Star of David, used because of its association with David and Jesus being born of David’s line. Sometimes the star will only have four points, and look more like a cross, again because of its symbolic links. If you want to make a star look really good you give it lots of points, so show the light is radiating out in every direction. We hope to have a new star hanging outside church this year with 16 points, as a welcome sign to everyone to come and join us for Christmas and to meet Jesus.

Of course stars don’t have points at all, unless you photograph them with a special "starburst" lens. Stars are really suns, like our Sun, round balls of fire suspended in space. They might have occasional flares but in reality they are more like a globe or shining orb. Even that has symbolic connections, a circle being a sign of perfection, a line without beginning or ending, like God.

This year we have invited everyone in Fulwood to make and bring a star to decorate the church. It can have as many points as you like (or even none at all), it can be made of anything: paper, card, tinfoil, material, and be of any size or colour. The important thing, like that first Christmas star, is that it brings you close to Jesus. So you can say, that star symbolises yourself, journeying to Bethlehem, to find Jesus and to worship him.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark street shineth the everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

May the star of Bethlehem lead you to the Christ-child, so that your hopes and fears are shared with God this Christmas and the everlasting light will be with you in the coming year.

God Bless
Peter D Sheasby