Angels In The Architecture: Reflections On The 2020 Winter Solstice

Introduction

I’m thrilled that last night’s Great Conjunction has at least momentarily stirred the hearts of the world, and forced many to ask questions such as “do these things in the heavens mean anything? And if so, what?”

Seeing these questions reveals a great deal if you’re willing to be observant. It reveals that people are starting to become aware that they have been swimming for far too long in the waters of Secular Materialism and that it’s cold mechanistic explanations of “how” the world works cannot satisfy the longing within the soul for meaning. Materialism can answer the “how” questions. But, it cannot answer the “why” questions, and thus can provide no real meaning to the world we live in.

But, as Christians, we can answer the “why” questions. We can provide a world desperately looking for meaning with answers because we are not Materialists.

Angels In The Architecture

Last night, the heavens were declaring the glory of God (Psalm 19). And, to wax poetic, they did so to a rare tune that has not been heard in many lifetimes (800 years, to be exact). The entire Host of Heaven was rejoicing, burning, illuminating the heavens in response to the tune of their Creator. And, the entire world sat awestruck watching their performance, even as their tune faded out into the blackness of the night. There was no speech or words spoken, but make no mistake, the voice of their song went out to the ends of the earth.

That’s how the Spirit-inspired, biblical writers were thinking about these things, and it’s how Christians after them in the Great Tradition thought about them as well. This is even how modern Christian Medievalists such as Lewis and Tolkien thought about them as well.

There are Angels in the architecture of the world, my friends. And, the sooner we acknowledge that, the better. The Cosmos are living and breathing, and there’s far more going on in them than Neil deGrasse Tyson floating around the lifeless black in his imaginary spacecraft telling you the arithmetic of the void called “space.”

Tell The Story

We have a story to tell that’s a far more enchanting story to tell than the one Secular Materialism is telling. So, tell it.

“You look at trees and called them ‘trees,’ and probably you do not think twice about the word. You call a star a ‘star,’ and think nothing more of it. But you must remember that these words, ‘tree,’ ‘star,’ were (in their original forms) names given to these objects by people with very different views from yours. To you, a tree is simply a vegetable organism, and a star simply a ball of inanimate matter moving along a mathematical course. But the first men to talk of ‘trees’ and ‘stars’ saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings. They saw the stars as living silver, bursting into flame in answer to the eternal music. They saw the sky as a jeweled tent, and the earth as the womb whence all living things have come. To them, the whole of creation was ‘myth-woven and elf patterned’.” — J.R.R. Tolkien