One of the most important signs of the Savior's birth was that a new star would appear in the night sky. Most likely, this new star was a Supernova. After all, Nova is Latin for new. There are many obvious reasons why a new star in the sky would be an important symbol for the Light of The World. However, we can learn more about Christ’s mission by considering what a Supernova in particular can teach us. A Supernova is perhaps somewhat poorly named, since it is not a new star in the sense that it has just begun to shine and will continue to do so for many billions of years, like most of the old stars that we see every night. A Supernova is the result of a star violently exploding in a brilliant eruption of light that often equals the total light of all stars in a galaxy combined together. A single star can't keep up this kind of fire for long so sometimes Supernovae burst onto the night sky and burn out and disappear before hardly anyone has a chance to see that they were ever there in the first place. A Supernova occurs when a star takes on more and more mass until something called runaway nuclear fusion occurs - with each fusion reaction, the temperature gets higher which generates even more fusion reactions, making the temperatures rise even further, generating even higher temperatures and on and on in a positive feedback loop. The other thing that can happen when a star takes on more and more mass is that the core collapses into a black hole, sucking everything into it, including light. Supernovae are beautiful, but it can also be a little sad knowing that we are witnessing the death of some other world’s sun. How fitting, though, that the death of a sun would herald the birth of the Son who would take upon Him the bands of death. A Supernova appears for one glorious moment before dying. So, too, did the Son of God walk among as for one glorious moment, relatively speaking, before He too died. But unlike most Supernovae, Jesus Christ did not burn out, nor did He allow the weight of all the sins and sorrows and miseries of a million billion souls to cause Him to collapse into a black hole of misery and endless woe. He died but He came back, even brighter, and His brightness and glory defy all description and will fill the immensity of space for all eternity. I know this to be true.
