It Happened Again!
I am still amazed at little, seemingly hidden verses that strike me from time to time. In recent years, it seems to always happen at Christmas. Last night was no different.Our congregation travels to a local rehabilitation and nursing facility every other Wednesday night to sing and fellowship with a special group of residents. Last night was our final visit for 2017. So, we sang through the entire Christmas, er, I mean, "Special Themes" section of our hymnal. True, there are several important Christmas hymns and carols noticeably absent from this particular compilation (O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, Sing We Now of Christmas, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Infant Holy, Infant Lowly, just to name a few).We came to It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. And we started in, just like we'd sung it time and time again. But we came to the third verse, and there it was, and it hit me right between the eyes.I must make a note here before going into that lyric: We in Churches of Christ have missed the boat on a LOT of the rich, broader Christian hymnody of Advent and Christmas. Not only that, but we've bred a culture of singing that skips stanzas. So many of our hymns and songs were constructed to tell a story...especially, this is the case in so many of these Christmas carols and songs...they tell of the full narrative, of the prophets foretelling the coming of Messiah, of Mary's encounter with the angels, of the manger, and of the upside-down-ness of Jesus' coming and our waiting for his second advent, his return...living in that in-between. We'd do well to sing all of these stanzas, and to broaden our choices to include hymns and carols with a rich heritage, while also looking to include new hymns such as Matt Boswell's Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery which tell the Christ story in with a wonderful new tune and rich text. Listen to the original here, then you can buy the a cappella version here. You can also read the comments of my friend and professor, Dr. Scott Aniol about omitting Christmas stanzas in a recent Baptist Press article here.
I digress...So often, these Christmas hymns include a story of how our world is doing anything but living in the reality of God's world-changing love, as shown through Jesus. I've written before about hymns like O Come, O Come Emmanuel and O Holy Night and how they sing into just how we are to live out that love in the here and now. So often, these ignored stanzas speak of the sadness of war and the lack of love for brother and sister humankind...This verse is no different. Consider these lyrics.Edmund H. Sears (1810-1876)3 Yet with the woes of sin and strifethe world has suffered long;beneath the angel strain have rolledtwo thousand years of wrong;and warring humankind hears not(Some hymnals use the original, "and man, at war with man hears not")the love song which they bring.O hush the noise and cease your strife,and hear the angels sing.Considering this hymn was written over 140 years ago, the commentary on the warring between humankind and the plea with us to cease our strife is all the more powerful, and all the more relevant for us today.And it sets up the closing stanza, now more important than ever to sing in light of stanza 3.4 For lo, the days are hastening on,By prophets seen of old,When with the ever-circling years,Shall come the time foretold.When the new heaven and earth shall ownThe Prince of Peace their King,And the whole world send back the songWhich now the angels sing.In our living and loving, may we send back heavenward, and to our brothers and sisters, the "song the angels sang."And may we sing these hymns and the rich stories they offer in their entirety...and may we be changed because of it.