Advent and the wonder of the stars and the season
- cdavis884
- Dec 23, 2025
- 4 min read
By Brian McGreevy
Writing some seven centuries before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah highlighted the importance of the stars in stirring our hearts to wonder, saying, “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” (Isaiah 40:26)
The liturgical season of Advent, observed by the church for more than 1,500 years, is a season of preparation and anticipation as we look towards and long for and prepare to celebrate not only Jesus’s incarnation at Bethlehem but also His return at the end of time in power and great glory. The Scriptures and songs of this season are strewn with imagery of stars, of light and darkness, of the coming of the Morning Star and with the stars falling from the skies in the last days: imagery that is designed to cause our hearts to fill with wonder.
The beautiful and ancient hymn “Conditor Alme Siderum,” still widely sung in Advent Sunday services in the U.K., has roots as far back as the 8th century and its haunting melody invites reflection on its profound words:
“Creator of the stars of night, thy people’s everlasting light,
O Christ, Redeemer of us all, we pray thee, hear us when we call.
To thee the travail deep was known that made the whole creation groan
Till thou, Redeemer, shoudest free thine own in glorious liberty.
When the old world drew on toward night, thou camest, not in splendor bright
As monarch, but the humble child of Mary, blameless mother mild.
At thy great name of Jesus, now all knees must bend, all hearts must bow:
And things celestial thee shall own, and things terrestrial, Lord alone.
Come in thy holy might, we pray; redeem us for eternal day
From every power of darkness, when thou judgest all the sons of men.”
An article in Christianity Today five years ago mused on this linkage of stars with Advent: “Nativity scenes in storybooks and light-up lawn displays are topped with a telltale twinkling star. It’s a sign that from the moment Christ was born, he caught people’s attention and drew them to worship. Our obsession with the star phenomenon is somewhat unusual since we modern people rarely look up to study the skies, given the glitter that exists today below the horizon. But the movement of stars in the sky attracted attention in the ancient world. For ancient peoples, stars were the greatest reminder that there was purpose in creation, a purpose that unfolded night after night as they watched the stars trek across the night sky.”
Yet we modern folk have often done what the Advent Scriptures enjoin us not to do, which is to fall asleep, lulled into a dull torpor where stars and wonder get lost in the tedium of the day-to- day grind. Light pollution and “progress” mask the nightly spectacle of the stars, the spectacle which caused Ralph Waldo Emerson to write, “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”
But all too often today we fail to look up and see their admonishing smile and wonder at who made them.”
May we this Advent be stirred to wake up and to wonder, to look up towards the light, and to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, so that Hope may be born anew in us. Towards the end of J.R.R. Tolkien’s great epic, The Lord of the Rings, the two hobbits Sam and Frodo are suffering on the slopes of Mount Doom. Their quest seems doomed to failure, and Sam, unable to sleep, is looking up at the dark sky and battling against despair, until (as Tolkien writes), “There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.” The light of Advent brings us true hope in Jesus Christ, because as St. John says, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5), and that is good news indeed.
The Rev. Brian K. McGreevy, J.D., serves as assistant to the rector of St. Philip’s Church, where he oversees hospitality ministry, teaches regularly on C.S. Lewis and the Inklings and serves in the preaching rotation. He is married to the former Jane Hollis Whitney, and they have four children and three grandchildren. He may be reached atbmcgreevy@stphilipschurchsc.org.
