A hymn that I love to sing is “Fairest Lord Jesus.” Years ago, I was playing my guitar and singing that hymn outside my apartment in Missouri. I think that it was in the fall of the year. There was a girl from Scandinavia taking our language learning course at that time. She asked me why I was singing a Christmas carol at that time of the year. I was confused, because I never thought of “Fairest Lord Jesus” as being a Christmas carol. As it turns out, in some Scandinavian countries, it is sung as a Christmas carol. My Finnish heritage betrayed me on that occasion. I had no idea. Recently I came across a song book called “The Carols of Christmas” which includes “Fairest Lord Jesus.” Who knew?! Obviously, I didn’t.
In contrast, everyone knows that “Joy to the World” is a Christmas carol, right? Well, you might be surprised that it was not intended to be a Christmas carol. Sir Isaac Watts wrote the hymn “Joy to the World” as a paraphrase of Psalm 98, and he published it in his Psalms of David Imitated (1719) under the heading “The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom.” Traditionally we sing this hymn at Christmas time, but actually Sir Isaac Watts had in mind the return of Christ for His children at the end of the age.
Verse 1 says: “Joy to the world! The Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heaven and nature sing.”
But that is not what happened at Christ’s first coming when He was born in a manger. Scripture tells us that “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not (Is. 53:3).” John tells us that “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him (Jn. 1:11).”
But when Jesus returns to earth to establish His millennial kingdom, both heaven and nature will sing out and repeat the sounding joy for all eternity. Christ will come for us one day, and we who know Him will all cry out, “Joy to the world.”
Let us be “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11)!”
Blessings,
Bob
