Storyfeast.org

Long ago, I named the groups that met to share stories “Story People.” One day i walked into a gallery in New Orleans and discovered Brian Andreas’ Story People. I decided we must be “Kindred Spirits.” Here’s a fun new item from their site.

Some of you may be thinking, ‘’Whew, we did it! Christmas is over!” Some of you may even be thinking, “Good, now we can stop singing all of those infernal Christmas carols in church!” Warning – it’s never too late to sing,”Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” Or, as my friend, Pastor Scotty Smith has taught me, Joy to the World is NOT merely a Christmas song.

Faith Hill did a new album this year centering around Isaac Watts’ famous hymn. It is amazing to think how many voices have joined in singing at least the first line and probably the refrain in the last month. In cars, in stores, in churches, in Christmas programs, people have proclaimed, “Joy to the World, the Lord is come!” Perhaps it is the first four words that our secular society is drawn to – indeed, in what could be called a rather depressing year, isn’t joy what the world needs now? And yet, if that were all the world needed, why aren’t more people singing the Three Dog Night version, “Joy to the world, all the boys and girls…Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me!”

I believe people join to sing these words because whether they know it or not or believe it or not, they are deeply drawn to the good news that the Lord IS COME! As Wikipedia says, ‘is come’ is incorrect modern English usage and we would now say, ‘has come.’ Whichever way you put it, the tense is important – present perfect – meaning, as all of my former English students will recall:), the action is completed (perfect) and the action is happening in the present. God is with us in Jesus. And this really is the best news people in our alienated and isolated world can hear.

The hymn also reflects the intersection of heaven and earth that is essential to understanding what God is up to in the world. (And if you want to understand this intersection more, I highly recommend you take that gift certificate to Amazon and order up a copy of N.T. Wright’s, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church). “Let earth receive her King” and “Let every heart prepare him room” remind us that both earth and its inhabitants are impacted by our King’s arrival. “Let heaven and nature sing” remind us that in Christ’s birth, the intersection of heaven and earth has begun.

Verse 2 continues the theme, telling us the response this great good news calls forth from us: “Let men their songs employ.” Not only do we sing this joy to the world, but we do so by living this joy in this world. If we do not live and proclaim this good news, the rocks, hills and plains will. “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:40). We have a story that heaven and nature will sing, so let us sing our songs of redemption with them.

What is this good news of joy to the world? Again, a call and a pronouncement: “No more let sins and sorrows grow.” How can this be? Because the Lord has come to make His blessings known “far as the curse is found.” As I have said in other articles in this series, despite what TV and media may tout regarding the ‘generous human spirit’ roused by the season, I find the opposite to be true of me. The fact is, the Christmas season can bring out the worst in me, where both sins and sorrows are concerned. When I sing this song during the season, I sing with heartfelt joy the reality that sins and sorrows truly will cease because his blessings flow into the deep crevices of my heart where the curse can still be found.

The hymn closes with a final call – to remember that this world is not all there is, that the small kingdoms we create or live in, whether they be called America or some other nation, are just that – very small. Our rulers can rule with truth and grace in some of their finer moments, but a King has come and will come who not only rules with truth and grace at all times and for all eternity but also “makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness”! Stop and marvel at this. Throughout history, various rulers have tried to make the whole world bow before them and proclaim their glory and righteousness. But their plans have never worked, and more often, they have brought oppression and disaster. Our King, the Lord who has come, will one day make the nations prove the glories of his righteousness because his righteousness does not stop with righteousness but travels on and through the wonders of His love!

The King who has come has begun a brand new thing, and we should sing Joy to the World every day, or at least several times a year. Why? Because it tells the story of redemption. It tells the story of the past, the present, and the future, not just of me as an individual American Christian, but of how Christ’s coming has and will transform all of Creation. It tells of how we separatists with our shrunken hearts and privatized Christianity will join together, even with nature, to sing of the wonders of His love. I have written more than I intended, but this song gets me really excited. I’ll end here and add a Christmas bonus for those of you who still want more, a short strange story of the odd intersection of heaven and earth that occurred once when this marvelous hymn was sung.

We were in a quite sweet Baptist camp located on the inlet of Wolf Bay. Throughout the weekend we shared the facility with two large high school groups. Mostly we saw them at recreation and meal time. The different tribes tolerated one another fine. For our final session, we were assigned to a small gazebo near the bay. It was a gorgeous warm morning. We sang our first gathering song acapello – “Take my life and let it be…” Very sweet to hear the voices of about 17 women singing our kingdom call…I spoke for about 20 minutes on Rest and Remembrance when the high school chapel began in a small concrete building around 200 yards up the hill. Heavy bass somewhat distracted my thinking but I managed to wrap it up and play “The Untitled Hymn” as their music stopped for a few moments. The communion leader spoke to the need for self-examination and offered us a few moments to pray quietly. As we reflected in silence, the big band began really rocking out as their worship time was launched. I squirmed a bit, a little distracted but asked God to help me focus on him and not worry about the other women. We were called to commune, passed the bread and cup and then rose to sing our final song – Joy to the World – all to the accompaniment of pretty loud Christian rock-praise. Oh I hope you can imagine 17 women singing joyfully to the Lord and tapping our feet to the drum bass and afterwards I just laughed as I prayed and thanked God for giving us this little preview of Kingdom worship – Indeed, let every tribe, tongue, nation, and people group, including women ranging in age from 80 to 18 and a whole bunch of teenagers, join together to sing the praises of our God. After I prayed, one of the women said, ‘And did you hear the bird that came right up to the gazebo and sang with us?”

Indeed, “Let heaven and nature sing!”

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

“Come thou long-expected Jesus.” Indeed. Come, Lord Jesus come! Right about now, doesn’t this one line alone capture where your heart is? Christmas details causing chaos? Come, thou long-expected Jesus. Family togetherness raising tension? Come, thou long-expected Jesus. Economic forecast raining on your planned parade? Come, thou long-expected Jesus.

The season of Advent, depending on your calendar, is fast coming to a close. The word itself comes from two Latin roots ad meaning “toward” and ven meaning “come.” We are celebrating God’s coming toward us in Christ. We are celebrating the intersection of heaven and earth. The Charles Wesley-authored hymn, which I first fell in love with listening to Indelible Grace’s rendition Indelible Grace’s version, takes us through the full meaning of that coming.
Perhaps you are like me, a little shy and apprehensive about those command performance seasonal parties. Perhaps you are like me, and somehow the days leading up to Christmas seem to draw to the surface not the best of humanity but the very worst of your sin nature. Perhaps you, like me, as you look toward the New Year, have tremendous hopes mixed with huge fears. If so, you, like me, need to move past the one-line prayer to the rest of the sentence: “Born to set thy people free. From our sins and fears release us; let us find our rest in thee.” Any and all of these sentences have become a ready one-line prayer as I step into situations that without Christ teem with possibility for sin, fear, and restlessness. The good news is that I really can step out of the craziness, sit near a fire and take a long draw from the homemade hot chocolate and ask Jesus to “let me find my rest in him.”
Our capacity for rest is of course related to our source of strength. Where do you find your strength? Where do you find your consolation? The next line of the first stanza always stuns me into recognition of how rarely I find it in the Christ whose coming we celebrate: “Israel’s Strength and Consolation.” Most often, I look inward to draw strength and I look outward to draw consolation. How I need to know my Strength is in Jesus and the Joy of every longing heart is my consolation. In these words we find a simple centering prayer for Advent: “Jesus, may you be my Desire, my Hope, my Joy, my Strength, and my Consolation.”
The second stanza reminds us that Christ came with a purpose that is the outflow of his deliverance – to bring his kingdom. It begins by reminding us of the paradox and the apparent folly that God’s King was born as a child. Who are you? “A nobody?” A shepherd, a young girl, an ordinary mom, an accountant? The child King was born to deliver you, ordinary, extraordinary, dignified, depraved, God-created human. And so we do beg him to bring His gracious kingdom to our hearts, to our world.
The last four lines take me back to a very real war played out in my heart every day. Yesterday provides a perfect example. I was driving my daughter 4 hours to her 4 week checkup after shoulder surgery. The trip there went relatively well. The doctor’s appointment went extremely well, as did the visit to the physical therapist – both agreed her shoulder looked great and her prognosis was excellent. We were having a nice day. And then things began to fall apart. I was tired and irritable from getting up so early. Starbucks sold me a cappuccino that proved to be only half-full when I raised it for the first sip 5 minutes after leaving the drive-thru. Traffic was horrible. My husband called for the report but couldn’t hear me because my Bluetooth wasn’t situated properly and I fussed at him for fussing at me. It was ugly. I did not want to be this way. I tried to stop complaining. I was now irritated that my daughter had left her driver’s license at home so could not drive even part of the way (not even caring that after the yanking of her shoulder she was sore and didn’t need to be driving!). During the 30 minute halt on the expressway while troopers cleared up debris fallen out of the truck of a student moving home, I plugged myself in to this song.
Here is what I heard and prayed, “By thine own eternal Spirit” (not by my hard work or grunting and groaning), “rule in all our hearts alone” (win this war against my fierce sin nature; defeat my will to have things go my way). “By thine all-sufficient merit”: thank you, Jesus, that no matter how badly I screw up this day with my complaining heart, it is your merit I trust in to deliver me, and your merit is all-sufficient. Thank God, I don’t have to do one thing more. And indeed, not only will he raise me to His glorious throne (He did, by bringing repentance for my moronic behavior), but even more amazingly, He will bring His kingdom near in me and through me. Indeed, let us wait for the Lord with eagerness, crying out, “Come thou long-expected Jesus.” Listen and look. The child-king is coming.

In these next days, many of us will join to sing familiar carols and hymns, such as “Hark the Herald” (for short). Perhaps you, like me and my kids, began to listen to the All-Christmas stations the day after Thanksgiving. What strikes me as so very odd is how songs rich in the theology and good news of the gospel are played over and over again on radio, in stores, in Christmas programs. The good news that Christ the Savior King came to dwell in flesh is getting airtime bigtime!

There’s just one problem – at least, for me, perhaps for you, perhaps for others who hear these songs. We can dully repeat the words or even sing them with verve without ever thinking about what we are proclaiming. Because we are singing amazing words, and because hearing and believing what we are singing can change how we view and see our lives, I’m going to highlight just a few. I have three favorite Christmas hymns, Joy to the World,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” and “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.” In the next few days I’m going to look at some of the words of these three favorites and also offer you some more resources if you’re interested in doing further study.

Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Though the first line of “Hark the Herald” (as it so frequently is shortened) isn’t the most fascinating from a theological standpoint, it’s worth mentioning the punctuation and the meaning of the line. “Hark!” is a call for us to listen. Why should we listen? Because the “herald angels sing!” Heralds are messengers, and in Luke 2, where this story begins, the heralds are no English newsboys shouting ‘read all about it,’ but terrifying angels appearing to the most unlikely of recipients – shepherds, that society’s equivalent of a check-out lady at Wal-mart.

The angel heralds proclaim odd news – a baby King has been born. Peace on earth I understand, but “mercy mild”? God’s mercy mild? Intense, passionate, astounding, stunning, but mild? Did Charles Wesley, the great hymnwriter, resort to the word for its alliterative value? I went to the dictionary to discover an obsolete dialectial definition of the word mild to get this one. In Wesley’s day, that word meant “kind or gracious.” Now that makes more sense – we are talking about God’s ‘hesed’ and ‘hen,’ the two key Old Testament words describing God’s covenantal love and gracious favor. This understanding also comes in handy in the otherwise puzzling sentence several verses later, “Mild he lays his glory by.” “Graciously, he set aside his glory to become flesh.” Indeed, God’s mild mercy draws him to mildly lay his glory by and become flesh in order that God and sinners may be reconciled!

I could write a small book on this hymn alone (hey, a good idea for a gift book for next Christmas?!), but I’ll do one more and then send you to ponder. Let’s skip down to a verse that the radio station versions often don’t reach:
Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display Thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.

“Desire of nations” is a reference to Haggai 2:6-7, where the Lord says the “desire of all nations will come and He will fill the earth with glory.” (The entire hymn is replete with Scriptural references; check out a great Bible study at http://www.joyfulheart.com/christmas/hark-herald-angels-sing.htm. Indeed, the verse is a powerful call to the Lord to come, to make ‘his home in us.’  That sounds very sweet, but when we consider the lines which follow, we may think twice.  The next lines reach all the way back to the beginning of redemption, Genesis 3, naming this glorious baby King as the “woman’s conqu’ring Seed” and calling God to “bruise in us” the “Serpent’s head.” These words are a bold cry to destroy our sin nature, to transform our hearts broken and ruined by sin. Of course I want Christ to dwell in me; I’m not so sure about the bruising part, which the uprooting of my idolatrous ways will surely cause.  The call for saving power is not limited to us individually; the words go on to ask for God’s restoration to extend to the entire ruined cosmos. The cry is for the intersection of heaven and earth, for a ‘mystic union’ which Christ accomplished in his incarnation, life, death, and resurrection.

Though I’ve passed over many of the riches in this discussion, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” tells a powerful story through each of its five stunning verses (I didn’t even know about the final one!  If I’ve piqued your curiosity, click on the link above for all of the words!). As you sing of Christmas in the coming days, listen. Listen to the words and pray that they truly change your heart and the hearts of all who hear.

Please join the discussion. What is your favorite Christmas hymn, and what words really stand out to you?

You will hear at least snippets of it this season. But do you really know the story Handel’s Messiah tells? Philip Yancey, columnist for Christianity Today, takes us through the Messiah and its meaning for Christians then and now. I’ve pasted in selections but please give yourself a true ‘rest’ and read and reflect on Hallelujah by Phillip Yancey, Christianity Today.

Some slices to entice you: 
“Then out of the tension in Handel’s music there soon emerge gentle, familiar words that strikingly resolve the contradiction of a powerful, but comforting ruler: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, ‘God with us.’” The God who comes to Earth comes not in a raging whirlwind, nor in a devouring fire. He comes instead in the tiniest form imaginable: as an ovum, and then fetus, growing cell by cell inside a humble teenage virgin. In Jesus, God found at last a mode of approach that human beings need not fear: a helpless baby suckling at his mother’s breast.

“Behold your God!” the chorus joins in, as if astonished. I wondered how many of the Londoners celebrating Christmas caught the sense of scandal. Stores outside displayed Dickensian scenes of Christmas mirth, and mangers dotted the town squares. But how many grasped the awesome implications of “Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb”? As G. K. Chesterton once marveled, “The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.”

Part 1 ends with a scriptural invitation (“Come unto him”) based on a paradox; Part 2 explains the paradox of how his yoke can indeed be easy, and his burden light. It is because of a transfer of suffering. At the cross, the pain and sorrow of humanity became the pain and sorrow of God. The chorus early on states it well: “Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows … and with his stripes we are healed.”

Furthermore, in that act death itself died. What happened next, on the day of resurrection, was a miracle deserving of all praise, deserving of the “Hallelujah!” chorus.

For reasons such as these, Handel’s Messiah could not rightly end with the “Hallelujah!” chorus. The Messiah has come in “glory” (Part 1); the Messiah has died and been resurrected (Part 2). Why, then, does the world remain in such a sorry state? Part 3 attempts an answer. Beyond the images from Bethlehem and Calvary, one more messianic image is needed: the Messiah as Sovereign Lord. The Incarnation did not usher in the end of history—only the beginning of the end. Much work remains before creation is restored to God’s original intent.

We were sitting in a modern brick-and-oak auditorium in the late twentieth century in a materialistic culture light years removed from the imagery of slaughtered lambs. But Handel understood that history and civilization are not what they appear. Auditoriums, dynasties, civilizations-all rise and fall. History has proven beyond doubt that nothing fashioned by the hand of humanity will last. We need something greater than history, something outside history. We need a Lamb slain before the foundations of the world.

I confess that belief in an invisible world, a world beyond this one, does not come easily for me. Like many moderns, I sometimes wonder if reality ends with the material world around us, if life ends at death, if history ends with annihilation or solar exhaustion. But that evening I had no such doubts. Jet lag and fatigue had produced in me something akin to an out-of-body state, and for that moment the grand tapestry woven by Handel’s music seemed more real by far than my everyday world. I felt I had a glimpse of the grand sweep of history. And all of it centered in the Messiah who came on a rescue mission, who died on that mission, and who wrought from that death the salvation of the world. I went away with renewed belief that he (and we) shall indeed reign forever and ever.

Hallelujah by Phillip Yancey, Christianity Today

“Greetings, O favored one!  The Lord is with you!”

These words, spoken to Mary by the angel Gabriel, are in fact words spoken to us.  Words we need to hear every day – we have been chosen by God, we are favored, and the Lord is with us.  They are a pronouncement, but, as we see in the interaction between Mary and the angel who spoke them, they are a call to submission and life. 

The rest of the story (Luke 1:26-38), remarkable for its understatedness, is worth reading again.  And again.  Here’s a short plot summary:  Mary is troubled by the greeting (my guess is she’s highly intuitive and knows it means some great and fearful calling is coming), Gabriel reassures her, “Not to worry – you are favored, indeed, and because you are, you are going to give birth – to the Messiah.”  (As if that will completely calm her fears.) Mary asks one and only one question, though much later in the story, more will come:  “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”  Good question.  Again, Gabriel calmly explains that the Holy Spirit will ‘come upon’ her and “the power of the Most High will overshadow her.”  Possibly understanding how little sense this explanation might make, he adds two essential pieces of information, first, “Your barren, aging relative Elizabeth is pregnant,” and second, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”  In what I consider a stunning response, mostly because I would have had at least twenty more questions and lots of objections at this point, Mary simply says, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.  Be it unto me according to your word.” 

“Greetings, O favored one!  The Lord is with you!”  Do you hear the angels calling you, o precious and favored one?  Do you know the Lord is with you?  What impossible, potentially humiliating, task does he call you to today, and how does your heart respond?  With Mary, do you say, do I say, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.  Be it unto me according to your word.”  More often than not, that is not my heart’s first response. But here  is the good news: it is not because we respond that we are favored; it is because we are favored that we respond.  It does not matter whether you are a man or a woman or a child; you are called to bear God into the world. Because of the one who favored us in the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, we respond to the impossible task:  be it unto me according to your word.  Let us today live in the good tidings of great joy and comfort – we are favored ones, and because we are, we will respond to the call to bear God’s image and live gospel impossibility in this broken world today.