Some years ago, when I moved to the Cape I bought a Mazda Miata convertible. My family thought I was having a mid-life crisis but were relived that as mid-life crises go, buying a convertible was better than my going off to India to become a hermit, or possibly to Boston to become bat-boy for the Red Sox. (The Mazda is still in the family but a younger son drives it to school, so I don't see much of it any more.) In any event, tomorrow is "Epiphany" or, as it is called, 12th Night - 12 days after Jesus' birth, he appeared to the wise men.
 
Today our best scholarship tells us that these 'wise men' were actually Zoroastrian priests, followers of Zoroaster, a Persian (modern day Iran) prophet who lived some 700 years before Jesus. Zoroastrians are followers of Light; their God is named Mazda, "the God of Light." They believe that every good man has a fravashi, a guiding light in the heavens that appears in the sky as a star when he is born. The greater the man, the brighter the star. Prophecy had told them that the "God of Light" would some day come to the world and be born as a human. When a super-nova appeared in the skies in approximately 6-4 BC, Matthew writes "...when Jesus was born...wise men from the East came to Jerusalem saying, 'Where is he who has been born king of Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him." (Mt. 2.2).
 
Tomorrow may you ponder God's light that has come into the world. As Zachariah said at the dedication of the infant Jesus, he "will give light to those who sit in darkness... to guide our feet into the way of peace."  (Luke.1.79)