The Two Faces of the Morning Star
Last Sunday at church, we sang the hymn “Morning Star,” composed by James P. Harding in 1892:
“Brightest and best of the stars of the morning / Dawn on our darkness and come to our aid.”
The hymnal noted that the associated Biblical text was Matthew 2: 9-12, an account of the wise men following the star to the scene of Jesus’ birth. In Revelation 22:16, Jesus refers to himself as the morning star, but yet another who is known as the Morning Star, due to Isaiah 14:12, is Lucifer, also known as Lightbringer. I like to entertain the idea that this is the expression of a view of the cosmos in which opposites unite.