Creator of the Stars of Night

It's nearly Advent again. A whole year has passed, and a few measly posts here. I much prefer writing in the no-discipline-required venue of my family blog.

Casting my net for good Advent songs to introduce to our congregation, I was ecstatic to find that High Street Hymns has done a version of "Creator of the Stars of Night". It's beautiful, the melody is a perfect match for the words, and the simple chorus that they added is a good balance to the complexity of the verses (which in some versions date back to 9th century Latin). Unfortunately they only included 2 verses and had lots of interlude and chorus time. You can really only sing "Come, oh come" but so many times before you forget what you're singing about and your mind wanders. So I think I'm going to use their tune, with no capo so it's a little low for the congregation but more singable than their very high version, and with these slightly tweaked lyrics:

Creator of the stars of night,

Your people's everlasting light,

O Christ, Redeemer of us all,

We pray You hear us when we call.

To You the suff'ring deep was known

that made the whole creation groan

'til You, Redeemer, should set free

Your own in glorious liberty.

Come, Savior, come.

Come, oh come.

Come, Savior, come

to us.

When this old world drew on toward night,

You came, but not in splendor bright

as monarch, but as humble child

of Mary, blessed mother mild.

Come, Savior, come.

Come, oh come.

Come, Savior, come

to us.

Come in Your holy might, we pray;

redeem for us eternal day

from every pow'r of darkness, when,

Lord, You will judge all sons of men.

To God the Father, God the Son,

and God the Spirit, Three in One,

Laud, honor, might, and glory be

from age to age eternally.

Come, Savior, come.

Come, oh come.

Come, Savior, come

to us.

The song has an easy, lilting rhythm that one of my band members described as being akin to a drinking song. I'd say maybe an end-of-the-night, everyone's fading away to their homes drinking song. It's really easy and catchy, an atypical praise song but one which I hope is still very congregation-friendly.

I ended up going to the 1940 Anglican hymnal and revising the verses from there. In verse 2, I changed "travail" to "suffering", because though I love "travail" I wanted to be realistic--who really knows what it means anymore? I had it slightly wrong and would have changed it to "trouble" until I checked the dictionary. In verse 3 I changed "blameless mother Mary" to "blessed mother Mary" because "blameless" doesn't seem accurate to sing in a Protestant context. We believe in the virgin birth, but "blameless" implies a whole lot more than that. I gave verse 4 the boot, because run-of-the-mill, Army Protestants just don't have quite the attention span of hardcore plainsong-singing Anglicans. The content is good, but I didn't think it added much to this particular song. And I had to account for the extra length from the chorus.

Like "O Come O Come Emmanuel", this one is perfect for Advent because of its echoes of the second coming. The Savior came once, and He is coming again. What a reminder to prepare the way! I also love its echoes of creation, when God made this beautiful world of nothing. My daughter has a Tiny Bear's Bible that is not only fuzzy and good for cuddling with (picture above), it also has some quite nice poetry such as this powerful depiction of creation:

He flung stars into space! He painted the sky!

He lit up the sun! He taught birds how to fly!

I like this verse but am on the fence about including it:

God, grieving that the ancient curse

should doom to death a universe

has found the medicine of grace

to save and heal a wounded race.

Maybe I'll have an alternate version of the song that we do sometimes. That's the beauty--one of the few--of using Powerpoint in church. You can change lyrics with minimal confusion.

A much darker version of the lyrics exists here. That website traces its origins back to the 7th century--how crazy is that? About 1300 years and we can still sing the same things about God.

Hebrews 13: ⁷ Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you.

Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

In a way, those who came before us in the faith are our leaders, who speak the word of God to us through song. They suffered, died, lived lives of love, and passed on the faith, all for God's glory. Let's sing these old songs with gratitude.