The Gemini

After this evening’s service, I wrapped up warm and sat in the back yard. With binoculars in hand and my Philip’s 2021 Stargazing manual, I beheld the stars. I was not engaging in astrological mumbo-jumbo, but admiring the Creator’s heavenly spectacle. Looking towards the south, the stars Castor and Pollux were not far from the moon, and therefore easy to spot.

When Castor died, because he was mortal, Pollux begged his father Zeus to give him immortality, and he did, by uniting them together in the heavens. The two were supposed to be sibling-gods, and were known as the gemini, ‘twins’. Castor was the son of a Spartan king, Pollux of the Greek god Zeus, but they shared a mother, so by some cunning calculation, they were reckoned twins. They were particularly beloved by sailors, and were carved onto the vessel which bore the Apostle Paul in Acts 28:11:

After three months we sailed in an Alexandrian ship whose figurehead was the Twin Brothers, which had wintered at the island.

If only the captain had known that the prisoner on board his ship served One infinitely greater than these two ‘gods’, and wonderfully more beautiful than the constellation that bears their name. The myth of Zeus placing both brothers in the sky for ever is rather lovely, and reminded me of the prophet Daniel, who wrote:

Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. (12:3)

Furthermore, Hebrews 2:11 remarks:

For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.

The divine Son of Man calling we sons of men brethren! What amazing grace. Just as the brothers loved each other and could not bear to part, so the Christian longs to go and be with Christ, and Christ with him. Death is the means by which the Lover and the beloved are united at last. The Gemini became a pagan myth and a source of astrological speculation. Rather, it is a lovely picture of Christ and the Christian: the divine brother sharing His splendour and immortality with his mortal brethren.

Image: Michelet B, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons