“Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
This is the final Friday of the season of Advent which means this is our final song of the season. I have been especially drawn this year back to the traditional Christmas carols when I have listened to Christmas music. There’s certainly an element of nostalgia there. Hearing and singing songs that remind me of good times in the past is heartwarming. I suspect you’re not so different from me in that regard. But the other reason I have been drawn back to those old songs in recent years is that I have become more and more aware of just how great are the truths those old songs proclaim. Many of those old carols make declarations and observations about Jesus that are deep and profound. By packaging such truths in wildly repeatedly forms, they have served as vehicles to help a culture that is awash in secularism to not lose sight entirely of what the season is really all about. Let’s talk for a few minutes this morning about Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
“Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel,’ which is translated ‘God is with us.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
The Advent season is probably my favorite time of the year with the possible exception of the first real onset of Fall. What makes the Advent season so special is its music. No other season has as much good and classic music associated with it as the season of Advent. The collection of songs it boasts isn’t necessarily all that numerous (unless you are comparing with any other season in which it dwarfs the competition), but the handful of songs are so good that everyone has done their own version of all of them. Indeed, of the making of Christmas albums there is no end. And while you can perhaps try to explain that from all sorts of different angles, without Jesus the songbook itself and a host of good recordings wouldn’t exist. He is inescapably the reason for the season. As has become our tradition around here, Fridays through the season of Advent are for celebrating this great music. We’ll start this week with a reasonably old recording of a music older song that I just recently discovered. Here is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel from the Punch Brothers.
“But the angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
One last song of the season as we prepare for Christmas Eve’s arrival tomorrow. We’re not going with anything new or particularly different today. Instead, we’re going with something old. This is a classic Christmas carol that was first published in 1739. I heard a wonderful podcast the other day in which the interviewee described this as the greatest Christmas carol ever.
It was written at a time when religious revivals were sweeping across the United States and England. This was when the Methodist Church was forming, and protestant groups generally were gaining strength. Baptists were multiplying much to everyone’s chagrin, and evangelicals were first starting to become a meaningful Christian group. About this time, participants in these various revival movements started to increasingly write their own much rather than merely singing the psalter as believers had done for a very long time prior to this point. In a sense, these hymns were the contemporary music of their day.
This was one of the first Christmas hymns written in this significant period of history. Like so many of the hymns of the day, it is filled with rich theology that can be used to teach young believers some of the great and deep truths of the faith if they are exhorted to listen carefully to what they are singing.
The hymn speaks of angels heralding the birth of the newborn King. It calls for joyful nations to rise in praise of the God who would send His Son for us. It proclaims the fully divinity of Christ at every point in His human existence. It speaks of the healing He would bring the world, and of the second birth to eternal life God promised us through Him.
By now, I suspect you have successfully identified our final song of the season as Hark! the Herald Angels Sing. As you prepare on this second-to-last day of the Advent season, may you reflect joyfully on the third day from now with a wonderful rendition of this great carol by Phil Wickham. Blessings and Merry Christmas to you!
“Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Can you imagine what waiting for the Messiah was like. Here was Israel as a people with the news that one day their God had promised to come and rescue them out of all of their troubles. He was going to regather them into one place. He was going to send a deliverer who would be their strength and their shield. He was going to come and be with them. Immanuel would be His name. Then, once He came, the church was left in a season of waiting once more. And though the object of the waiting had changed some, the hope really hadn’t.
It is no wonder then that Christian monks in the eighth or ninth century AD composed a hymn that gave word to this longing, this expectant desire for the coming again of Christ the Lord to make all things new. This cry of longing rings all the more true in our hearts today as we long for relief from the brokenness of the world around us. We want redemption to be made complete. We hope for salvation to finally be delivered in full.
This is what the season of Advent is all about. Give form and substance to this great hope and expectation. It would be several generations before the hymn those monks wrote would be given the form that is more familiar to us today, but when it did, their cry of, “O come, o come, Emmanuel,” would be sung by heaven-minded believers the world over with passion and desire for that day. In a world torn asunder by troubles of every kind, His coming, His arrival is the longing of our hearts.
As you listen to today’s song of the season, one of my very favorite, reflect on the powerful reflection of desire latent in these words. This particular version from the Piano Guys adds a wonderful layer of beauty to the haunting, minor melody of this great hymn of the faith.
O Come, O come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, I Israel!
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer Our spirits by Thine advent here; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, I Israel!
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high, And order all things far and nigh; To us the path of knowledge show, And cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, I Israel!
O come, Desire of nations, bind All peoples in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease; Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, I Israel!
The Nexus 