Lost in the Night

The other night I was walking across the Harvard Yard about midnight. I was on my nightly pilgrimage to the mailbox. The night was beautiful and clear. The myriads of stars were twinkling and the heavens seemed studded with millions diamonds. A beautiful full moon was shining brightly upon the tall white spire of Appleton Chapel, making it glow as a great shaft of light piercing the midnight sky.

Suddenly one of those shooting stars came out of the East. Like a white hot coal it crossed the sky until it went right over the point of the chapel spire. In fact, for one split second it glowed like a bright light on the very tip of the spire. Then, it moved westward, and soon it was lost in the night.

It all happened so quickly. It was over in one brief moment of time. However, I will never forget that moment. It will ever be engraved in my minds eye. And, when it was over, the tall spire of the church still stood out against the night as a white shaft of light piercing the darkness, to remind me of that which had just come to pass. And then that spire reminded me of why it was there. It was built on that very spot to memorialize the coming of another great light into the world. Almost 2000 years ago that night, there was a star that came out of the East to herald the event. The wise man who followed the star suddenly lost it in Jerusalem. In their frenzy of being lost they finally turned to Herod and his wisemen to help find their way again. They went out again into the night, and lo they were no longer lost. For when they heard the King, they departed. And lo the star which they saw in the East, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

You and I are often lost in the night. That night in the Harvard yard, I learned this single lesson. When the star was gone, the steeple still stood as a sacramental reminder of the star that shone on its journey into the West. It stood pointing into the heavens reminding me that 2000 years ago the light of God’s eternal son came down to radiate from a manger in a very dark world. And the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.