“The Night the Stars Sing”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Luke 2:1-20, Isaiah 9: 2, 6-7

Christmas Eve, December 24, 2018

It’s a little-known fact that if you listen closely as the winter solstice approaches, the stars begin to sing.

A few days ago I stepped out onto my deck around 6:30 in the morning and a bright star in the southeast caught my attention. On this cloudy morning, there was a small pin-hole in the clouds with a brilliant yellow-blue star peeking through. So lovely, it made me stop and catch my breath and gaze upwards.

And that’s when I learned that if you listen closely enough, the stars are actually singing as they wing their flight over all the earth.

The celestial song was one without words, the kind that seems to penetrate your gut and heart more than your ears. My dog paused next to me there on the deck and as I laid a hand on her warm back I felt certain she was a part of the song, too. She and I stood together, gazing up at that morning star in the eastern sky, breathing in, breathing out….at one with all creatures across time who have dared to look up at the night sky and ponder their place in this swirling universe.

Breathing in, breathing out….craning our necks to glimpse the holy. Breathing in, breathing out…filled with that fleeting sense of peace that comes on a silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright.

Breathing in, breathing out….believing for just a moment that one day peace shall over all the earth, its ancient splendors fling...and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.

As soon as the moment caught me, it was over. The dog nudged me insistently, ready to go back inside and eat breakfast. The song of the stars dimmed and my ears were once again filled with the ordinary sounds of the teakette, the furnace, my thoughts.

I went inside and prepared my tea, thinking about Charles Wallace - who you might know from Madeleine L’Engle’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, but I was actually thinking of a slightly-older Charles Wallace from A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

Charles Wallace also knew that the stars sing at this time of year. The novel begins on Thanksgiving night an the Murray family receives some frightening news. Charles Wallace says he needs to go out to the star-watching rock in their backyard. “I need to listen,” he says simply. And he knows that his ears will be the most open under the night sky.

While gazing up at the night sky, listening to the stars sing the Old Song, Charles Wallace somehow manages to conjure a unicorn (just roll with it) named Gaudior. “Gaudior. That’s Latin for more joy,” Charles Wallace murmurs.

As the rest of the novel unfolds, we witness the characters tapping into the deep, all-encompassing Joy that is at the very heart of the cosmos. As Charles Wallace and the unicorn travel across time and space they seek connection with this Joy - the Joy that the stars sing of, the Joy that is a part of the ancient harmonies, the Joy that has existed since before time began and will never cease even after this world has ended.

Over the aeons, humans have tried to name this Joy, but, really, the song of the stars is fairly impossible to capture with words. When we name this Joy as God it’s an approximation. Incomplete, but it will have to do since our human voices don’t resound quite the same way the stars do.

Christmas Eve is one of those times of the year when we pause to bear witness to Joy - that ancient song, that deep abiding thrum of the stars - as it bends near the earth.

For on this night, we wait expectantly for the miracle promised. A baby, takes his first breaths earth-side. Looking up at the stars above, listening with the fullness of his tiny, new, human body. Breathing in, breathing out. Tuning his ears and heart and life to that ancient song that the stars sing.

For on this night:

Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing and voices ring
With Peace to all on earth

We sing to bear witness to Joy, come to us in human form. Emmanuel. God with us. Joy sings from the stars. Joy fills our lungs. Joy is here, now. This holy night.

And with this realization comes another, sweeter truth: all nights are holy.

The stars shine even during the day when we cannot see them.

Emmanuel - God with us - is not only for tonight but for each and every moment of eternity.

God is present not only in the child born in Bethlehem so many years ago, but in the joyous faces of children as they race downstairs on Christmas morning to see if Santa has arrived. Christ is not just a person who lived long ago, but a mighty force living and breathing hope into the lives of children who travel many miles to find safety, only to be met with scorn and terror. And Christ, of course, is not only found in children, but in each and every person we encounter - those who look like us and those who don’t, those who are easy to understand and those who seem incomprehensible.

Father Richard Rohr says that which we call Christ isn’t limited to a stable in a faraway place all those years ago. Instead, Christ is “the transcendent within everything in the universe.” Christ is that which transcends understanding, circumstances, explanation. And the purpose of religion isn’t about dogma, Rohr says, instead religion is re-ligio….re-ligament….re-connection. [1]

Re-connection with that powerful and abiding Joy that existed even before the stars began to sing the ancient harmonies. Joy that can be found here and now. Joy that will continue to reverberate even when we are all long gone.

Near the end of A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Charles Wallace and the unicorn, Gaudior, are on a difficult mission. As they gallop through a starry galaxy, Charles Wallace struggles to stay awake and Gaudior cautions him, “Do not go to sleep.” An exhausted Charles Wallace replies, “I’m not sure if I can help it.” [2]

“‘Sing, then,’ Gaudior commanded. ‘Sing to keep yourself awake.’” And with that, “the unicorn opened his powerful jaws and began to sing with the stars.” [3]

Singing in harmony, the boy and the unicorn “moved through the time-spinning reaches of a far galaxy, and [Charles Wallace ] realized that the galaxy itself was part of a mighty orchestra, and each star and planet within the galaxy added its own instrument to the music of the spheres. As long as the ancient harmonies were sung, the universe would not entirely lose its joy.” [4]

We sing this night because the universe has not yet lost its Joy. We sing this night because Joy came to us in human flesh so that we might remember it has always been with us.

We sing this night with the stars. We sing the ancient harmonies because Joy lives and moves and has its being in us. Even here, even now. Thanks be to God.

[1] Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ: Another Name for Every Thing

[2, 3, 4] L’Engle, Madeleine. A Swiftly Tilting Planet.