How lovely shines the Morning Star!
Revelation 22:16 I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star.
The Magi had time to think. Their journey from the east to the little town of Bethlehem likely took them a month or longer. All that time, they had virtually nothing else to think about except this newborn King they were going to see, and what it meant that God had kept his promise to send a Savior into this world.
That’s so often our problem. We don’t have time to think. We fill up our time chasing from one place to another. We fill up our calendar with too much stuff to do. We fill up our minds with endless screens – phone, computer, and TV. We don’t ever allow ourselves to just sit and become bored. To sit and think. To sit and meditate.
What would it be like to sit and spend hours and hours just dwelling on the beauty of God’s grace? A Lutheran pastor from sixteenth century Germany was granted a golden opportunity to do just that. His name was Philipp Nicolai. He was born ten years after Martin Luther died.
During Nicolai’s ministry as a pastor, the Black Death plague swept across Europe. In the worst year of the plague, 1,400 people died in Nicolai’s town. On one day, there were 30 people from his congregation who died and were buried. The cemetery was just outside his parsonage window.
This might not sound like a golden opportunity, but it was. During this time, Nicolai read the Scriptures and prayed. The busier he was, the more he dug into God’s Word. For long periods of time, he contemplated God’s teaching about eternal life through the blood of Jesus Christ. He wrote a book of devotions called “Mirror of Joy,” and he included some hymns in the back of the book. One of them was the hymn, “How Lovely Shines the Morning Star,” for which he wrote both the words and the music.
It’s not hard for us to guess Nicolai’s motives in writing this hymn. If you can’t figure it out from reading the words, then take note of this – each of the seven original verses of this hymn began with a letter from the name of one of Nicolai’s dear Christian friends who had died in the plague.
In the preface of the book he wrote, “To leave behind me (if God should call me from this world) as a token of my peaceful, joyful, Christian departure, or (if God should spare me in health) to comfort other sufferers whom He should also visit with the pestilence.” “How Lovely Shines the Morning Star” is one of the monuments of Lutheran hymns and is called the Queen of Chorales. (A “chorale” is a non-Latin Lutheran hymn written between 1520 and 1750.) Another hymn in the book, “Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying” is today called the King of Chorales. God blessed Philipp Nicolai to be a pretty awesome hymn writer!
In the first stanza of “How Lovely Shines the Morning Star,” Nicolai connects Christ as the Bridegroom to we in the Christian Church as his blessed and beautiful bride: “How lovely shines the Morning Star! The nations see and hail afar. The light in Judah shining. Thou David’s Son of Jacob’s race, My Bridegroom and my King of Grace, For Thee my heart is pining.” This hymn was used so extensively at weddings, that the idea became common that if this hymn was not sung at the wedding, the couple was not properly married.
This hymn is so beloved that stanzas of the hymn were engraved upon bowls and kettles and vases. It was sung at Communion because of the fourth stanza: “A pledge of peace from God I see When Thy pure eyes are turned to me to show me Thy good pleasure. Jesus, Thy Spirit and Thy Word, thy body and Thy blood, afford My soul its dearest treasure.”
The hymn was used at the deathbed of Christians who had kept the pure faith and were prepared to follow the invitation to the wedding feast in the Kingdom of God. The theologian Johann Gerhard died while singing the words of the seventh stanza: “Oh, joy to know that Thou, my Friend, Art Lord, Beginning without end, the First and Last, Eternal! And Thou at length, o glorious grace! Wilt take me to that holy place, The home of joys supernal. Amen, Amen! Come and meet me! Quickly greet me! With deep yearning Lord, I look for Thy returning.”
Nicolai dealt with untold bitterness in his life, and so do we. It’s hard to have to deal with death. We can try to avoid thinking about it, but eventually it catches up to our loved ones. It catches up to us. Before it catches us, we can feel its icy breath down into our soul. Death is grabbing at us – bringing ailments, illnesses, diseases, injuries, and aging. There are school shootings, terrorist attacks, panic and pandemics. St. Paul is correct when he assesses the moral condition of our world: “They all turned away; together they became useless. There is no one who does what is good; there is not even one. … Their feet are quick to shed blood. They leave a trail of destruction and suffering wherever they go” (Romans 3:12,15,16). Sin, death, and destruction is not just out there in our world, it begins right here in our heart. We have each turned from God. So now we have failure and fear, anxiety and anguish, hardships and heartache. Now our souls are restless, and we long for relief, comfort, and rest.
Nicolai begins the hymn, “How lovely shines the Morning Star.” Jesus said of himself at the end of his Revelation to St. John, “I am the bright Morning Star” (Revelation 22:16). When you do have time to think, isn’t it usually in the middle of the night when you shouldn’t be thinking? You should be sleeping. But your mind is racing. You are thinking about your aches, your hurt feelings, your guilt - your physical pain, your emotional pain, your spiritual pain. You feel miserable all over. The night seems to stretch on forever. You just want the darkness to be over. You keep waiting for a new day, a better day to dawn.
If you live far from the city, you look for the rising of the Morning Star – the planet Venus. When Venus rises over the night horizon, hope grows in your heart because the new day is not far behind!
The Magi were following God’s miracle star in the darkness … probably for weeks to travel from the east to Bethlehem. Finally, though, their long night was over. They followed the bright star in the sky so they could see the bright Morning Star in the crib.
Jesus is the Morning Star. He brings the bright hope of his love and forgiveness into our darkness. Whatever harm we have caused others or ourselves, Jesus won forgiveness for upon the cross and out of the grave. He comforts us with his unconditional love and promises to care for us every day and every night.
Jesus is the Morning Star. He brings the bright hope that a new day coming. When struggling through a long night of guilt, or a long week of illness, or a long year filled with heartache, we can look for our bright Morning Star. Jesus promises to be with us to bring us to a new day of his love here and an eternity of new days with him in his home.
With “How Lovely Shines the Morning Star,” Nicolai remembers what God has done for us. He sent us “David’s Son of Jacob’s race,” a Savior who is both “lowly” and “holy,” “true Son of God and Mary’s Son.” Jesus had to be God because we need a Savior without any sin of his own. He had to be human because we need a substitute whose life and death would count in our place. By his death, that Savior has taken away our sin. Now he has risen and rules, “Great and glorious, O victorious Prince of graces, Filling all the heavenly places.”
Jesus is your “Morning Star,” your light in every dark place, your promise of a new day in God’s good grace. He is your “Bridegroom” who loves you more than any groom has ever loved any bride, who has sacrificed his life for you and who now lives to shower you with the blessings of his love. He is your “Vine” who supplies you, his branch, not just with life but with the ability to bear fruit that will last, even when the world around you looks like a desert wilderness. He is your “Eternal Friend,” your “Alpha and Omega,” your “beginning” and your “end.” Your Savior is God’s answer to your anxiety, fear, grief, loneliness, troubles, pain, sin, and death.
Where else can our restless souls find the peace and joy of God’s love and forgiveness? Where else can our restless souls rest secure and safe in God’s love, no matter what is happening in us and around us? Nowhere else. Lord, “Sighing, Crying For the savor Of your favor, Resting never Till I rest in you forever.”
What was it like for Philipp Nicolai to dwell on the grace and goodness of God’s saving love for hours, days, weeks? In the preface to his book of devotions, Nicolai wrote about what it did for him: “I found myself, thank God! wonderfully well, comforted in heart, joyful in spirit, and truly content.” What was it like for the Magi to dwell on the grace and goodness of God throughout their long trip to Bethlehem, following that star in the sky? We’re told, “When they saw the star, they rejoiced with overwhelming joy” (Matthew 2:10).
Is it possible that God might have similar blessings in store for you? He does! There is bitterness everywhere in this world and in our own hearts, too. There is sin everywhere in this world and in our own hearts, and the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Set aside your phone. Clear your calendar. Just sit and think. Sit and contemplate. Sit and meditate. There is nothing more wonderful, more beautiful, more peaceful for our souls than to be able to think and dwell upon the Epiphany of Christ into our world. Even eternity won’t be able to lessen the joy we have in him. He is our heavenly Bridegroom, an endless source of love, and he has given us all eternity to drink it in. “How lovely shines the Morning Star!” Amen.
1. How lovely shines the Morning Star! The nations see and hail afar. The light in Judah shining. Thou David’s Son of Jacob’s race, My Bridegroom and my King of Grace, For Thee my heart is pining. Lowly, Holy, Great and glorious, Thou victorious Prince of graces, Filling all the heavenly places.
2. O highest joy by mortals won, True Son of God and Mary’s Son, Thou high-born King of ages! Thou art my heart’s most beauteous Flower, and Thy blest Gospel’s saving power My raptured soul engages. Thou mine, I Thine; Sing hosanna! Heavenly manna Tasting, eating, Whilst Thy love in songs repeating.
3. Now richly to my waiting heart, O Thou, my God, deign to impart. The grace of love undying. In Thy blest body let me be, E’en as the branch is in the tree, Thy life my life supplying. Sighing, Crying. For the savor of Thy favour; Resting never, Till I rest in Thee forever.
4. A pledge of peace from God I see When Thy pure eyes are turned to me to show me Thy good pleasure. Jesus, Thy Spirit and Thy Word, thy body and Thy blood, afford My soul its dearest treasure. Keep me kindly In Thy favour, o my Saviour! Thou wilt cheer me; Thy Word calls me to draw near Thee.
5. Thou, mighty Father, in Thy Son Didst love me ere Thou hadst begun this ancient world’s foundation. Thy Son hath made a friend of me, And when in spirit Him I see, I joy in tribulation. What bliss is this! He that liveth to me giveth Life forever; Nothing me from Him can sever.
6. Lift up the voice and strike the string. Let all glad sounds of music ring In God’s high praises blended. Christ will be with me all the way, Today, tomorrow, every day, Till traveling days be ended. Sing out, ring out Triumph glorious, o victorious, Chosen nation; Praise the God of your salvation.
7. Oh, joy to know that Thou, my Friend, Art Lord, Beginning without end, the First and Last, Eternal! And Thou at length, o glorious grace! Wilt take me to that holy place, The home of joys supernal. Amen, Amen! Come and meet me! Quickly greet me! With deep yearning Lord, I look for Thy returning.