Tag: Revelation

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Hark the Herald Angels Sing :: Advent’s Joy

Christmas is a musical outlier—no other modern holiday is set to its own soundtrack. The downside to seasonal music is that nearly everyone has a Christmas song that they can’t stand. Little Drummer Boy, Feliz Navidad, and Santa Baby occur frequently on modern lists of annoying Christmas songs.

For Charles Wesley, the 18th century theologian, the song that bothered him so much that he refused to sing it was Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Now a popular carol, it was originally published by Wesley’s student George Whitefield. Most of the lyrics, however did not belong to Whitefield, they came from the pen of Charles Wesley himself.

When Wesley originally wrote it as a Christmas Day hymn for his church. “Hark! How all the welkin rings, glory to the King of Kings,” he wrote, echoing the angel’s praise in Luke,  “Glory to God in the highest heaven.” Welkin means sky, and while the skies were filled with praise, there is no Biblical record of the angels singing.

Whitefield went further than narrative adaptation, however. And the verses he chose to drop from the hymn demonstrate Wesley’s ability to capture robust theology in verse:

Come, desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Now display thy saving power,
Ruin’d nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.

Let us thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.

Ultimately the song has stood the test of time, in part because of both men’s work. Whitefield shaped what we now celebrate as heaven and earth rejoicing at the coming of Christ, but Wesley’s theology still resonates with our longings in Advent as we sing:

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.

Listen: Hark the Herald Angels Sing by Paisley Abby Choir (2:59)

The Request for Presence
Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. — Psalm 144.5

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
2 Chronicles 13 (Listen – 3:56)
Revelation 3 (Listen – 3:53)

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Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus :: Advent’s Joy

“It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror,” Charles Dickens wrote of Scrooge’s meeting with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand.

The future of Christmas came as a warning to Scrooge—change your ways, or this is what will become of you. The miser pleads, “Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!” As a tool in Dickens’ narrative, this transition serves Scrooge well. As a motto to live by, it would lead readers to misery.

Our hearts and flesh fail us too regularly for this to work—go try harder is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps it’s best to contrast Dickens vision with the words of another literary giant, John Wesley. The pastor and theologian composed dozens of books, wrote thousands sermons, and published over 6,500 hymns during his lifetime. In one of his most famous hymns he wrote:

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.

In this, Wesley captures the fulfillment of the first Advent while directing our attention on the brilliance of the second advent. What a miracle that the long expected Messiah was born into our world! How we long to be released from this brokenness. How we long for rest.

The message to Scrooge never led him beyond himself (which was his problem in the first place). The message of Wesley is for those who have met the end of self. For those who haven’t found true joy in success, those who can’t live past their failures, those who cannot find satisfaction in the messiness of this world; Christ is the “Joy of every longing heart.”

Listen: Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus by Christy Nockels (2:59)

The Call to Prayer
Bless the Lord, you angels of his, you mighty ones who do his bidding, and hearken to the voice of his word. — Psalm 103.20

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 11-12 (Listen – 6:00)
Revelation 2 (Listen – 4:59)

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Love’s Journey :: Advent’s Love

Reflection: Love’s Journey :: Advent’s Love
The Park Forum

The town of St. Joseph, 60 miles north of Kansas City, MO, originally served as a starting point for the Oregon Trail. In its heyday, the streets would have been filled with thousands of pioneers provisioning for the final time before “jumping off”—a term used for leaving civilization behind for the nearly half-year journey west.

Almost thirty years after the Civil War, in 1892, Katherine Kennicott Davis was born into a second-generation pioneer family who had settled in the old trailhead town. By the time Davis was born the railroad had expanded and St. Joseph was no longer as influential. Much like the town they lived in, Davis’ family was neither culturally elite or affluent, but even as a child she showed unique talent which would shape her life.

While pioneers risked everything to travel from St. Joseph into the promise and peril of the Wild West, Davis would take her own risks, cutting her own path east. After graduating from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she braved trans-Atlantic travel to study at the Royal Academy of Music.

Davis returned to the US and, with a world-class education, dedicated herself to teaching children music at various schools across New England. The majority of the more than 600 pieces Davis composed during her lifetime were for the children she taught.

In 1941 Davis penned, “The Carol of the Drum,” which would be popularized as, “Little Drummer Boy” when the Trapp Family Singers picked it up in 1955. Despite her volume of work and level of talent, Davis isn’t widely known for any other song.

The story of the “Little Drummer Boy” embodies part of the beauty of Davis’ story. The song begins with a boy taking a risk to travel and sit with someone great. The boy is aware of—but undeterred by—his simple heritage, offering his musical talent with great diligence. Though many might overlook such a musician, he receives the prize upon which his hope was set: the love of the One whom he has been playing for all along.

Listen: Little Drummer Boy by Dolly Parton (4:36)

The Morning Psalm
Therefore my heart dances for joy, and in my song will I praise him. — Psalm 28.7

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 8 (Listen – 3:02)
3 John (Listen – 1:51)

This Weekend’s Readings
2 Chronicles 9 (Listen – 5:07) Jude (Listen – 4:12)
2 Chronicles 10 (Listen – 3:01) Revelation 1 (Listen – 3:43)

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The Invitation

“The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” — Revelation 22.17

What is the purpose of Christian living? We know what it looks like when it’s done wrong. Moralism breeds guilt for failure, intolerance toward others, and pride in perceived successes. Rejection of morality and discipline erodes the transformative power of the sacramental living. To understand the purpose we have to look toward the goal.

Like a masterfully arranged symphony, the final note of Scripture rings with wonder and beauty: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.” Grace—and not just grace, but an invitation for others to come into grace. Gregory the Great observed:

Hear how John is admonished by the angelic voice, “let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’” He into whose heart the internal voice has found its way may, by crying aloud, draw others into where he himself is carried.

There are predictable ways a religious text could end: rules, admonition, veiled threats—yet the Christian Scriptures end with open arms. Charles Spurgeon believed that invitation, “come,” is the motto of the gospel:

The cry of the Christian religion is the simple word, “Come.” The Jewish law said, “Go, pay attention to your steps—to the path in which you walk. Go, and if break the commandments, and you shall perish; Go, and if keep them, and you shall live.”

The law was a dispensation of the whip, which drove men before it; the gospel is just of the opposite kind. It is the Shepherd’s dispensation.

The Shepherd goes before his sheep, and bids them follow, saying, “Come.” The law repels; the gospel attracts. The law shows the distance between God and man; the gospel bridges that distance and brings the sinner across the great fixed gulf which Moses could never bridge.

Evangelism is not an action, but the culmination of Christian living. As we cultivate Christian practices—personal devotion, service to the marginalized, and commitment to community—our lives, workplaces, and cities flourish.

In this way Christian living is sacramental. Devotion cultivates peace, peace flows—like living water—into a dry and thirsty world. Gregory the Great concludes:

For the Church dwells in the gardens, in that she keeps the cultivated nurseries of virtues in a state of inward greenness.

Today’s Reading
Isaiah 52 (Listen – 2:46)
Revelation 22 (Listen – 3:59)

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Elisabeth’s Letters :: Weekend Reading List

“Encouragement comes to me from many different sources, and I would like to be able to pass some of it on to others,” reflected Elisabeth Elliot in her first newsletter, penned in the winter of 1982.

In the 21 years that followed Elliot would share stories, encouragement, and struggles with her readers—providing a glance at a heart that was, at the same time, captured and challenged by Christ. In a series on why Christians suffer she wrote:

The last newsletter told of my mother’s [cranial surgery]. I spent Thanksgiving weekend with her in the hospital. It was hard to see her thin, weak, and disoriented—she whom I think of as quick-witted and alive.

My psalm for the day was the sixty-third. I told myself that I must not dwell on things seen, but on things unseen…. When I went to see her later that morning, I read her the passages. I asked for reasons for thanksgiving she could think of, and she came up with quite a long list.

The Lord was there. I was sure of it, and I was strengthened. I think she was too.

Following her husband Jim Elliot’s slaughter by the indigenous tribe the two served as missionaries, Elliot invested her life not only in Christian ministry, but in returning to the tribe to know and serve them.

Though her story is one of inner strength and fortitude, it is also one of inner quietness and responsiveness. Elliot was, in every respect of the word, observant; listening and engaging with what she understood God doing in and around her—in life’s most trying moments as well as its daily frustrations. She explains:

Jesus slept on a pillow in the midst of a raging storm. How could he? The terrified disciples sure that the next wave would send them straight to the bottom shook him awake with rebuke.

He slept in the calm assurance that his father was in control. His was a quiet heart.

Purity of heart, said Kierkegaard, is to will one thing. The son willed only one thing: the will of his father. That’s what he came to earth to do. Nothing else.

A quiet heart is content with what God gives. It is enough. All is grace.

One morning my computer simply would not obey me. What a nuisance. I had my work laid out, my timing figured, my mind all set. My work was delayed, my timing thrown off, my thinking interrupted.

Then I remembered. It was not for nothing. All is under my father’s control—yes, recalcitrant computers, faulty transmissions, drawbridges which happen to be up when one is in a hurry. My portion. My cup. My lot is secure. My heart can be at peace. My father is in charge. How simple!

Response is what matters.

Elliot’s writings are profound in their honesty and simplicity. Above all, she connects faith to daily life—in both its banality and brutality. The source and hope is the same. She reminds:

Whatever may be troubling you at this moment is not new to the Lord Jesus. He is not taken by surprise. He is the same—in a prison cell in World War II and in the midst of your dilemma. It is no dilemma to Him. He is not going to leave you.

Weekend Reading List

Today’s Reading
Isaiah 49 (Listen – 4:55)
Revelation 19 (Listen – 3:47)

Today’s Reading
Isaiah 50 (Listen – 2:09) Revelation 20 (Listen – 2:49)
Isaiah 51 (Listen – 4:35) Revelation 21 (Listen – 4:34)