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Wandering Star
The star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, the great Poet Laureate of the Victorian age and Queen Victoria's favourite writer, was on his way home. He was an old man now, leaning upon his stick as the breeze across The Solent buffeted his poet's big black hat and flapping cloak.
All his literary triumphs were behind him now. The cycle of poems entitled "In Memoriam", which Tennyson had written to commemorate the friend of his youth, Arthur Hallam, who died so tragically in his twenties, made the poet's name, partly because it came to reflect also the grief of the queen and the nation at the death of Prince Albert. "The Charge of the Light Brigade" caught the imagination of the nation, and exemplified the British fondness for plucky chaps who don't quite come first. What ode would Tennyson have written about Tim Henman if he had lived in a different age, I wonder? "The Idylls of the King" rode the flood tide of the mid-Victorian craze for all things medieval and Gothic as it retold the Arthurian legends.
Tennyson was standing on the quayside at Lymington in Hampshire, waiting for the evening ferry to take him across to his home on the Isle of Wight. He was, as he said of the dying King Arthur, now "in the white winter of his age." The twilight enclosed him, the evening bell sounded across the water, and he knew that the darkness was coming, at day's end, and at life's end. He had one last great poem within him, which he had yet to write. By the time that the little boat had docked at Yarmouth, Tennyson had the whole poem in his head, and he hurried home the short distance to Farringford to commit it to paper. He called it, "Crossing the Bar", and it is one of the greatest poems in the English language…
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea…
The ferry slipped out of the estuary, past the sandbanks, and into the open, now inky waters of the western Solent. Before Tennyson lay the darkening mass of the Isle of Wight, which, in a brighter prospect, Isaac Watts had used as a very visual metaphor for heaven in his hymn, "There is a land of pure delight / Where saints immortal reign." What a poet of the Christian faith Dr. Watts had been, and Tennyson must have known his hymn, written more than one hundred years before this moment.
Wherever, and in whichever direction, we travel, the stars ahead of us are always ahead of us - such is the immensity of the heavens. We can scarcely perceive them wheeling about the Pole Star, yet it is we not they who are turning. In consequence, of course, the stars surreptitiously rise and set in their turn as they appear above and disappear below the horizon. That interesting thought occurred to Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople and the greatest preacher of his age - the fourth century AD. His apparent surname was, in fact, his nickname - John Chrysostom, John of the Golden Mouth, or "John Goldengob" as more humorously minded Patristic scholars sometimes refer to him. Who better then to wrestle with such concepts than the greatest Christian apologist of his time? The star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. How did the star lead the wise men to Jesus? Chrysostom wrote this…
(the star) did not, remaining on high, point out the place; it not being possible for (the magi) so to ascertain it, but it came down and performed this office. For you know that a spot of so small dimensions, being only as much as a shed would occupy, or rather as much as the body of a little infant would take up, could not possibly be marked out by a star.
It came down and performed this office… The science of the matter hovers in the background, but it is not the definitive factor. Let the sheer poetry of the Gospel Infancy Narratives move your heart and mind, as it moved the heart and mind of artists such as Edward Burne-Jones. His great picture, "The Star of Bethlehem", was reproduced in various media. The original watercolour of it hangs in Birmingham City Art Gallery - it is immense. A version of it hangs in Eton College Chapel. The most beautiful tapestry version of it hangs in the chapel of Exeter College, Oxford, where Burne-Jones and his friend, William Morris, had been undergraduates together. Till it came to rest over the place where the child was… in Burne-Jones' depiction, an attendant angel holds the glowing star in his cupped hands, shedding the glow upon him who would be the Light of the World.
We are the people who follow that light now. We are by no means the first generation to do so, and we shall not be the last. That of God which leads us onwards, yet always proves just out of reach, has always been a major theme of Christianity and, indeed, of Judaism before it. The fact that it always seems to be just out of reach is a significant part of what actually leads us on. As a Christian, I have always felt more comfortable being led onwards by the attractiveness of the light rather than by being chased forwards by fear of the dark, fear being a significant part of the evangelical preaching of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And yet, of course, it is the fact that the light shines more brightly in contrast to the darkness of life that truly makes it the Light of the World.
The star of Bethlehem - were it a star, or a comet, or a particular conjunction of significant planets - led on the astrologers from the east in a similar fashion to the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night of the Mosaic era. A lighthouse shining out through the fog over a becalmed Mediterranean Sea led John Henry Newman to write his famous hymn, "Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom." He prayed… "The night is dark, and I am far from home, lead thou me on." Tennyson gazed across the waters to the beckoning evening star, and wistfully found hope in the sight, even though the initial journey was to be made out into the darkness…
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
When Saint John had written his Gospel, he set himself to compose the magisterial Prologue with which it would begin and which would set the leitmotif of all that was to follow… The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. But it has been true, hasn't it? I think of a time in this land more than a thousand years ago, when there were wolves in the forests and a light from monastery windows guided a traveller home to a place of safety for the night. Their faith is ours. I think of medieval candlelit processions in the Middle Ages making their way through the great doors of a cathedral as the dawn of Easter Day was about to break upon them all. Their faith is ours. And Tennyson, seeing a simple evening ferry crossing as a metaphor for life's final journey…
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark.
His trust is ours. Were all those people wrong to trust the light that they followed, even if it were with faltering and uncertain steps? The wise men from the East found a child - but was it just any ordinary child? Have we been mistaken for two thousand years? Did all those wonderful, trusting, holy people who went before us travel in vain? Could we, or they, have found a better journey to make?
No - they found the true Light, and they followed it, and we are walking in their holy footsteps. We are the earth-travelling companionship of the divine Light of our age, the Christian pilgrims who are doing now what millions before us did in faith, in hope, and in love. Find me a better journey to make of my life, if you can! As for me, I, like you, will renew my commitment to that journey as each year turns. The Covenant Prayer of the Methodist Covenant Service gives me the context in which to do this. Like Tennyson, at journey's end, I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar. Like the wise men from the East in Saint Matthew's story, I am longing to see the face of Christ when his light has led me to my destination. Let us do what they did, and follow what they followed… The star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.
Come! Let there be no hesitation, no fear, no anxiety, no sense of loneliness, and no blindness to the realities of a difficult journey. The Light of Jesus Christ is before us. We have a journey to make and to complete - and we shall make it together! The wise men did not travel alone… and neither do you.