Christmas: The Promise of the Stars – December 15, 1985
When Thomas Carlyle, the British essayist and philosopher, looked into the heavens, he saw more than stars. He saw hope. “When I gaze into the stars,” he wrote, “they look down upon me with pity from their serene and silent spaces….Thousands of generations…have been swallowed up by time, and there remains no sign of them anymore. Yet Arcturus and Orion…are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the shepherd first noted them.”
Christmas is the season of a star— a star and its promise. All those thousands of generations Carlyle imagined “swallowed up by time” have not been lost. They return to us each Christmas.
Christmas is the celebration of family and friends, the celebration of a world in which hope ultimately conquers despair. Christmas is the gift of a child who brought the promise of everlasting life to all those “thousands of generations” times which he is now unable to swallow.
Christmas is the hope of children, who feel the Christmas season in their very bones.
Christmas is a memory and a premonition— the memory of how sweet the gift of life is;
the premonition of how much sweeter life shall be.
Sweeter…because of Christmas. Because of the hope of a star. Because of the child whose birth the star foretold.
In a letter to his brother, Thomas Carlyle wrote: “In my…heart there is yearly growing up the…persuasion that…for us in these days prophecy…is the thing wanted.”
Prophecy such as that received by shepherds standing in a field, or wise men searching the stars for gifts, for a sign, for hope. Prophecy such as, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great Joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11 )
This is the Gift of Christmas. This is the Gift that swallows time and fulfills the promise of the stars.
December 15, 1985
Broadcast Number 2,939