In the predawn darkness, a single bright light rising in the east has captured human imagination for millennia. In 1599, the Lutheran pastor Philippe Nicolai shaped that image into his chorale “How Brightly Shines the Morning Star,” a melody so radiant that Bach, Buxtehude, and many others returned to it again and again.
The morning star is striking — steady, brilliant and perfectly placed to announce the arrival of dawn. But it isn’t the Star of Bethlehem… and it isn’t a star at all.
It’s the planet Venus.
Because Venus orbits closer to the Sun than we do, it never strays far from the Sun’s glow. That means we see it only shortly before sunrise as the morning star, or shortly after sunset as the evening star.
During the 2024 Christmas season, Venus was magnificent in the western sky at dusk — unmistakably planetary. Its closeness to Earth didn’t make it look larger to the eye, but its intense brightness certainly made it feel larger than the distant stars around it.
So naturally, you might expect Venus to take its turn this year as the morning star. And indeed, it was visible before dawn in early November. But by December 25, Venus slips too near the Sun’s position in the sky. It rises almost in step with the Sun itself, and its brilliance is completely lost in the growing light of morning. Astronomers are predicting that on Christmas Day, Venus will be invisible to the naked eye.
But the symbolism endures.
Nicolai’s chorale points to a deeper truth — that light entering the world cannot be hidden. Even when the morning star is lost in the Sun’s glare, the promise of light breaking forth remains.
