Joy to the world! The Lord is come; Let Earth receive her king; Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing!
I’m writing this column two days before Thanksgiving, but by the time you read it, Christmas music will be playing in every store and on many radio stations either non-stop or very regularly. There is a lot of Christmas music that I am ambivalent about, to put it kindly. It seems like every singer and his or her brother or sister has put out the oblig-atory Christmas album and forgive me if I seem jaded when I say it sounds like an easy cash-grab. And just how many versions of “Up on the Housetop,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” do we need?
Christmas hymns, though, are another story. Not all of them are cre-ated equal, but the good ones are very, very good. Many of you know my personal favorite is “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” but it’s not the only good one. Songs that celebrate the advent of Christ really strike a chord with me because of the whole idea of anticipation wrapped up, the waiting for and fulfillment of The Promise. That’s why “Joy to the World” is my second favorite Christmas hymn.
“Joy to the World” is THE most published Christian hymn in North America. I read recently that Isaac Watts, who wrote the lyrics, wrote it not as a Christmas carol, but as a song celebrating the triumphant return of Christ. Its adoption as a Christmas carol came later. But WHAT a Christmas song it is! When you think of it, as written, as a song about the second coming of Christ, you can really appreciate the faith and anticipation expressed in it. It is a celebration of a promise, being sung as a fait accompli, which is the very essence of faith. So when we sing it, we are doing as we are encouraged to do again and again in the Psalms; we are rejoicing in His promises be-cause we remember that He has kept them in the past.
We sing with hearts full of praise and thanksgiving for the historical reality of the incarnation, while we are just as thankful and full of praise for the second coming, which, while still in the future, is just as sure a thing!
A final thought on this hymn: just as Christmas is more enjoyable if we prepare for the day in advance, so will His return be more wel-come and pleasant if we are well and truly ready. “Let every heart prepare Him room” indeed. Let us remove the things that crowd Je-sus out of our lives and make room in our hearts today; let us “roll out the red carpet” as it were, because any moment could be the moment He arrives.
