Because Christmas is coming, I’ve decided to take a break from my daily review of modern worship songs and focus on Christmas hymns for a month. I’ll start with Advent. In my Baptist/independent evangelical church scene, we’re not really into feasts and church calendars. But I like all Christian music. And I do enjoy listening to hymns associated with church seasons. Advent is the four-week season in the Christian calendar leading up to Christmas, focused on preparing for the birth of Jesus and anticipating His second coming.
Because most of these hymns are old, I can include the lyrics without fear of breaching copyright – hope 😀.
“Creator of the Stars of Night” is an ancient Advent hymn with deep roots in Christian tradition. It originated in Latin as Conditor alme siderum and has been sung for centuries in evening prayer services during Advent.
1. Creator of the stars of night,
Your people's everlasting light,
Jesu, Redeemer, save us all,
And hear your servants when they call.
2. In sorrow at the helpless cry
Of all creation doomed to die,
Did save our lost and guilty race
By healing gifts of heav'nly grace.
3. When Earth was near its evening hour,
You did, in love’s redeeming pow’r,
Like bridegroom from his chamber, come
Forth from a virgin mother’s womb.
4. At your great name, exalted now,
All knees in lowly homage bow;
All things in Heav’n and Earth adore
And own you King forevermore.
5. To you, O Holy One, we pray,
Our Judge in that tremendous day,
Ward off, while yet we dwell below,
The weapons of our crafty foe.
6. To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, Three in One,
Praise, honor, might, and glory be,
From age to age eternally.
For the last few years, I’ve gone along to the Advent Procession is Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick. All the lights are turned off, and a little choir walks around the cathedral and sings advent hymns. Creator of the Stars of Night is sung each year.
I rarely think of Jesus as a baby, apart from Christmas. My key picture of him is in the gospels and his glorified form in the Book of Revelation. At Your Feet We Fall is based on John’s vision of the risen, ascended Jesus in Revelation 1.
But it’s also amazing to think of this tiny baby, and to think of the stars and how these came into existence through the very person who appears in that little manger in Bethlehem. The Christmas story is told in Matthew and Luke’s gospel. But John’s gospel goes right back to eternity:
John 1:1-3 and 1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:14
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Colossians 1:15–17
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Hibernia Gospel 