Charles Wesley (window at Memorial Chapel, Lake Junaluska)
I really should have posted this back during Advent or at least earlier in the Christmas season because tomorrow is Epiphany, and no one will be singing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" OR "Hark, How all the Welkin Rings" for a while. However, while Advent and Christmas may not necessarily be "the most wonderful time of the year," it is a fact that they are the busiest time of the year for clergy, and it has taken the slow-down of the early days of the new year and a bit of snowfall for me to get down to thinking about this blog again.
We three pastors took turns preaching on various Christmas carols, and naturally, I just had to have Charles Wesley's best-known carol, the one he simply called "Hymn for Christmas Day." Back in July, I held the manuscript in my own hands, marveling at the still-legible words he penned to express the idea that the whole cosmos, everything in heaven and on earth, was praising God at the birth of Jesus. With his use of the archaic word "welkin" and his reference to "universal nature," Wesley emphasized that the coming of Christ signaled the restoration of the broken creation in its entirety and not simply the redemption of fallen humanity.
The lyrics have gone through some changes over the 278 years since it was written, including the unauthorized edit by George Whitefield that left us with the first verse as we know it today, removing both the welkin and universal nature and subtly changing the theological focus of the hymn. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that this carol expresses the deep mystery of the Incarnation in a way unparalleled by any other.
In singing these words, we rejoice that God’s love for us is so fierce, so all-consuming, and so indestructible that nothing else would do except to come right down here and be present with us in the grit and grime of our messy lives, meeting us when we are most lost, most broken, most needy, restoring us to the image of God and reconciling all things in creation to God. That is the gift we celebrate during Christmas, and it is the good news that we are to live out and witness to in every season. I pray that 2018 will be a year in which you make the welkin ring with the glad tidings that the Word continues to meet us right where we are, while loving us far too much to leave us there. I will close with Charles Wesley's original words --
1. Hark, how all the Welkin rings
" Glory to the King of Kings,
" Peace on Earth, and Mercy mild,
" GOD and Sinners reconcil'd !
2. Joyful all ye Nations rise,
Join the Triumph of the Skies;
Universal Nature say,
" Christ the Lord is born to Day!
3. Christ, by highest Heav'n ador'd,
Christ, the Everlasting Lord,
Late in Time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin's Womb.
4. Veil'd in Flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail th' Incarnate Deity !
Pleas'd as Man with Men t'appear,
Jesus, our Immanuel here !
5. Hail the Heav'nly Prince of Peace !
Hail the Sun of Righteousness !
Light and Life to All he brings,
Ris'n with Healing in his Wings.
6. Mild he lays his Glory by ;
Born ; that Man no more may die,
Born ; to raise the Sons of Earth,
Born ; to give them Second Birth.
7. 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.
8. Now display thy saving Pow'r,
Ruin'd Nature now restore,
Now in Mystic Union join
Thine to Ours, and Ours to Thine.
9. Adam's likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place,
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy Love.
10. Let us Thee, tho' lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the Heav'nly Man:
O ! to All Thyself impart,
Form'd in each Believing Heart.
