Mazzaroth

It’s easy to get swept away in the day-to-day. If you watch too much of the news, you start thinking that things are spiraling out of control and toward doom, chaos, and more suffering. Have you ever found yourself in need of a break from it all? Have you ever wanted to find a place to just be still and rest? Have you ever needed a place to lay down all your worries and let go of every stress?

I did and I found a place. It happened to be early in the morning when things felt the most calm and the sky was filled with stars. I could go there and just sit and look up at something so beautiful that it distracted me from all the anxiety for a moment. I could look in any direction and be in awe. That awe led to many honest conversations in the darkest part of the morning.

The Moment

It’s 4 a.m. After months of looking up at the night sky, I noticed a pattern in the Eastern sky. It’s called Orion. You’ve probably seen it or heard of it. It’s one of the biggest and brightest constellations, and it’s mentioned by name in Job.

The verses in Job speak of God’s awesome power and the distinction between the Creator and creation. From the Greek perspective, Orion represents a great hunter, known for his hubris. In Hebrew, that same group of stars was called Kesil, or fool. Some think it was referred to that way in mockery of Babylonian beliefs and customs related to the stars.

Before I looked any of that up, I saw the pattern without that context. It looked like a brand or logo because of how uniform and designed it appeared. According to scripture, God himself created it, designed it, and set it in place. But when I looked at the pattern from my point of view, I didn’t see what others saw. I saw a cross.

Two symmetrical stars on opposite ends, like arms outstretched. One of them has a red tint and its polar opposite doesn’t. In the middle, three stars in an almost perfect vertical line. For some reason, I thought of the Trinity. Imagine God placing a set of stars to remind the world of His Son.

In Job, the question is posed: who can loose the belt of Orion? The belt is the three stars in the center. For me, the question becomes: who can break the bond of the Trinity? It’s unimaginable. When I look at the two opposing stars, I think of Jesus sacrificing himself for us, our pride, our hubris, our foolishness nailed to a cross. In the center remains a group of stars that I see as the Trinity, held together in a constant dance of love. The outstretched arms are an invitation to join that union.

It’s also a reminder of His awesome ability to bind. We don’t have the power to hold things in that way, but He does. He has bound the devil. He has bound sin. Who can loose what He has bound? He holds the stars together. He holds everything together in himself. His very act of creating is taking scattered things and joining them in love.

Jesus became the thing that binds humanity to the Trinity. He did something others would call foolish. He loved us knowing we were weak, like a fool who looks up at what some would call random lights in the sky and sees patterns and ascribes meaning to them. He looked at us and saw something. He got up on the cross and became us. He took on our death and suffering. He bound himself to us, so that there could be the same dance of love between us and Him, and Him and the Father.

When I look up at the sky, I don’t see a giant, a hunter, or a fool. I see a reminder of Jesus, His outstretched hands, His heart of love, the invitation to join the Family, and His Spirit now dwelling in our hearts.

The Research

Or maybe I’m the fool. Maybe it is about pride, hubris, and the folly of man. But what if it’s not?

That started me down a journey through scripture, and one word stood out: Mazzaroth. It’s very difficult to translate. In older Bibles it sits among classical names like Orion, yet it was never rendered as “constellations.” The translators kept the name, which to me felt like an artifact of something ancient, a piece of wisdom that survived the cycles of time and the reinterpretation of language. Modern translations render it as “constellations,” but it isn’t just any set of patterns. It points to a specific set, designed for everyone to see and, according to scripture, meant for discerning signs and seasons. Those seasons became calendars and ways to keep time and celebrate festivals.

I found a few 19th-century books that reframed the constellations not as a Greek mythological story but as a heavenly tapestry telling the story of Jesus. It resonated with me immediately, because it was what I had experienced firsthand. But I could also see how this teeters on the line of looking to the stars for signs or prophecy, so I was cautious. I wasn’t going up each morning to worship the stars but the one who imagined them and created them, because it could have been total darkness and it wasn’t.

So I took the same approach I took with W.E.B. Du Bois’s work: what does this look like today? If I took the technology and data a person like me can get his hands on and ran some analysis, would I come to the same conclusion? I attempted it with a little help from artificial intelligence.

First question: are there actual patterns in the sky, or are we making them up in our heads? The stars have been there forever, but different cultures call them different things. The natural human response seems to be to look up and ascribe meaning to what we see, perhaps a remnant of something we were always meant to do. And if there is a pattern, does it have a progression? A sequence would support the idea of a story.

It turned out both were true. The patterns weren’t random. They were grouped with meaningful spacing, with a gap that suggested a natural ending and beginning, and the groups connected in a way that was almost progressive. Think of a sheet of music: you’re not hearing the music, but you are seeing it, and each note plays a role in the overall progression. It was confirmation that something was there, just enough to keep my curiosity going.

Second question: does the story the original authors told hold up against today’s data and translations? It turned out this was not as clear. There was no scientific evidence that the way they interpreted what the stars meant was accurate. Using some of the research available today, many of the names didn’t have the exact meaning.

One of the main critiques was that they were doing what others had done: overlaying the story we want to tell onto the pattern to give it more meaning. In a sense, that could be true. From the Christian lens, everyone else was wrong and degraded what was really true, and connecting the Gospel to the stars gives them the honor they deserve. I get it, and I love the idea, but I caught a little pride mixed into that perspective. Describing the characters in this new story gives me another chance to impose an image on the sky, the same way the Greek myths did. Who gets to define what these characters look like, and who gets to say whom Christ is redeeming? The story tells of His conquering return for His bride, and you start looking for signs of when.

It’s easy to slip into making them something to gain power from rather than simply observing. Many times I picked this study up and put it down, prayerfully asking not to be led away from Him or to lead others away from Him. I wrestled with it for myself.

The Hope

As I let the idea settle, a new one emerged. It’s more imagination than claim, because I have no way of proving it. You know how the constellations always seem like stick figures? What if they’re only partially drawn, and the fullness of the picture emerges when all things are made new? Then the Gospel in the stars becomes one of the more awesome home decorations in the galaxy, which seems fitting for the Son of God.

Imagine the banner over us, there since the beginning of creation, telling the whole story for the entire inhabitable world to see. It’s His story on full display even before we set foot in the garden. I imagine God chatting with Adam and telling him what He’s going to do.

Do I have any proof of this? No. That’s where all of this falls apart, because it requires faith. But if I can see Jesus in the stars, opening up a way to the Father in a single constellation, then I believe the authors of old could have been onto something.

It reframes the chaos we see around us. The forbidden fruit in this whole study is ascribing meaning to something that has none, or handing control of our fate to something other than God. That’s divination. But spend a few minutes with the news and it’s filled with people saying our fate is doomed. That feels like divination too, just with less storytelling and mysticism. If His story of love is written over us like a banner and tells us how it ends, all we have to do is look up for a reminder of who’s in control. We see it every night, and it repeats forever, like a song.

Perhaps if that story turns overhead every night and unfolds sign by sign as the Earth travels around the sun through the year, then we are the words to the song playing on that record. We bring it to life through our testimony. One day there will be a wedding. Imagine being invited to help get the space ready and finding string lights already hanging, made by the Father to celebrate His Son for all eternity. It is a privilege to have any portion of my life interwoven into that larger testimony.

Where my hope draws from

• Colossians 1:16-17: all things created through Him and for Him; in Him all things hold together
• Psalm 19:1-4: the heavens declare God’s glory, and their voice goes out through all the earth
• Job 38:7: the morning stars sang together at creation
• Song of Solomon 2:4: “his banner over me is love”
• Deuteronomy 18:10-12: the warning against divination
• Revelation 21:1-5: all things made new
• Revelation 19:7-9 and 21:2-3: the wedding, the bride, and God dwelling with His people

The Tool

So what do we take from this? This pattern was given as a tool. That’s scriptural, and it speaks to a plan and orchestration that involves time. It existed well before any civilization tried to exalt itself in the heavens through myths or space junk. If there are appointed times for things, like rest, remembering, and celebrating, there must be a reason. That’s one of the  things we’re clearly invited to take from the stars.

So I created an app designed to do just that. It aligns time, the Mazzaroth, and the Hebrew and Christian calendars in one place. There’s also an overlay of the Gospel in the Stars to help guide your reflection time, if you need a reminder of the one who is really in control, knows every star by name, and has already planned a good ending for you. It’s worth repeating and reminding yourself of these things during a time when others and other things seek the position of dictating your fate.

Set aside the stress and the worry for a moment, and let go of grasping for what feels out of your control. Right now you’re sitting on a planet that is being held in place and not falling or spinning out of control. Tonight, step outside, preferably before dawn, and bring your own question with you. The app is only a reference point. What you notice, and what you make of it, is yours to weigh against what you believe. There’s enough space up there to dream big, and you can’t dream bigger than the one who made it all. Go sit and see what grabs your attention.

Simply look up. Perhaps that’s a bigger story working its way out.

I still struggle, but that struggle is underneath a banner and decree that already has an ending. The ending is good regardless. That banner in the sky can be a promise of rescue while also being a reminder of reckoning. My only hope is that I can bring my part of the story to life, and let everything else fall in line with the idea that this is His creation and He holds all things together. With that banner over us, why limit our view of what’s possible when He’s already shown us how it ends?

Where my imagination drew from

• Genesis 1:14: the lights set for signs and seasons
• Leviticus 23:1-2: the LORD’s appointed times
• Job 38:31-33: the belt of Orion and the Mazzaroth in its season
• Psalm 147:4 and Isaiah 40:26: He names the stars