Carols Week 3 - Angels From the Realms of Glory

Carols Week 3

Angels from the Realms of Glory

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It truly is a joy to worship with you on this muggy day that the Lord has made!

What an amazing time of worship last week with the Cantata. The choir really outdid themselves.

Next week, we will have our normal worship service at 8:30 if you want to come and worship here and hear about another one of the best-loved songs of Christmas… That one will be “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” Then, at 11:00 we will all gather in the Great Hall. I am looking forward to next week as we celebrate Christmas with the kiddos. Lisa has been working so hard to bring the gift of this children’s play to us. Most of you know this will be her last official act or program as our Children’s Director as she re-retires. But don’t worry, she’s not going anywhere… she’ll still be a volunteer and help with the children’s programs, she’s just not going to be ‘in charge’. That said, we will be looking first for an interim children’s director while we begin the search for our next Children’s Director to lead this ministry into the future. OK… enough of that.

Today, we are continuing our time looking at some of the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. What better way to spend this season of Advent, than considering songs that share hope, portray peace, and today share Joy! One of my resources has been a book by a good friend of Renee’s family, Ace Collins. He did all the leg work and compiled the stories of the best-loved songs of Christmas.

What I have been doing with these Carols is sharing a little of the back story, then getting into the meaning of the story in our lives today.

Joy to the World would have been a great song for today. Or maybe Joyful, Joyful… but the song that God has led me to today doesn’t even contain the word JOY. But the spirit of joy is expressed throughout all 5 verses of Angels from the Realms of Glory. We’ll get into those verses in a moment. But before we get there, I want to share a couple of verses with you from Paul.

Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians early in his ministry, sometime around 52AD. Things were going well. He was a Roman Citizen so he could move about freely. He was accepted by the other Christian leaders like Peter and James at that point. He’s just doing his traveling preaching thing and what does he tell us when life is great?

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Rejoice always – That’s easy to say when things are going well isn’t it? Everyone likes you, you’re not worried about pandemics and the flu and cancer… The kids are doing great… the Grandkids are, well, grandkids… life is good.

But what if people don’t like you? What if you are being mistreated? What if you are dealing with a financial crisis? What if your marriage is struggling? What if you’re kids are hurting? What if you’re dealing with grief, or illness, or injury?

Or, as Paul was experiencing, what if you have been beaten, or snake bit, or shipwrecked, or imprisoned? What if you are chained to a soldier every hour of your life?

What does Paul say about that? Turn with me to Paul’s letter to the Philippians. This is late in his ministry, around 67AD. Paul is likely sitting in a prison cell or under house arrest in Rome awaiting his execution… and he writes these words:

Philippians 4:4

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

Paul’s situation, Paul’s happenings changed nothing. The message was the same regardless of what was going on around him – Rejoice! Be full of joy.

Would you pray with me?

[Prayer]

James Montgomery

James Montgomery flunked out of school. – Now, I’m not promoting that you flunk out of school at 14 as a road to success… but that is just a small part of James Montgomery’s story.

He was born to Rev. and Mrs. John Montgomery in Irvine, Scotland. His parents were Moravian Missionaries and put James in Boarding School in Ireland while they went to serve in the West-Indies in 1776. Within 6 years both of his parents died and at the age of 12, James was an Orphan. He studied in Yorkshire at Fulneck Seminary before he flunked out at 14 and became a baker’s assistant. By the age of 20 he was a vagrant, homeless, and often unemployed.

James’ only interest was writing. He loved to write. He would scrape and save to buy pencils and paper to write stories and poetry on everything from loneliness to faith. He tried to have his works published, but who listens to a bum off the streets trying to hawk dirty pieces of paper with poetry on them? Who, that is, but the publisher and editor of the Sheffield Register – a radical periodical that dealt with political issues such as the political wars between England and Ireland. Finally, he was paid to do what he loved, write. And in the years that followed, when his boss was often arrested for the radical views expressed in his paper, James would step up and run the business.

Then, “at the age of 23, when the owner was run out of town for writing radical editorials concerning Irish freedom, the missionary’s son took over the Register.”

In an effort to pacify the British government, he changed the name of the paper to The Sheffield Iris, but the political nature of the paper's content continued landing James in jail. Once he was jailed for writing about the glory of freedom expressed in the Fall of Bastille in Paris. Another time they arrested him for writing in support of the abolition of slavery and even another time for writing about the brutality of the local magistrates.

But, when James Montgomery wasn’t writing politically charged editorials and poems, he was studying his Bible. He wanted to understand what would have led his parents to risk their lives in the West Indies. And, in his study of God’s Holy Word, he found more than he ever dreamed. Then, at one point in his life, his studies culminated into a poem published on December 24, 1816.

Irishmen would search the Sheffield Iris looking for words of inspiration for their call against England. English officials combed the Iris for words and phrases that would send Montgomery back to prison. But on that Christmas Eve, neither found what they were looking for. Instead of divisive writings, the readers from both sides of the debate found words of unity.

Written in the same prose of his youth, the readers found the poem he titled, “Nativity.” Protestant or Catholic, Presbyterian or Anabaptist, Anglican or Methodist – the words of this poem united all believers as they celebrate their Savior’s birth.

The final verse, a verse that you and I have likely never seen, shared these words:

Sinners, wrung with true repentance,

Doomed for guilt to endless pain,

Justice now revokes the sentence;

Mercy calls you. Break your chain.

While some thought the chains he called for breaking were those that bound the Irish men and women, the words themselves tell us a different story.

This poem of an Irish radical may have been forgotten if not for the musical genius of an Englishman. Henry Smart was the son of an English publisher and a musician. Smart was a radical as well, but not one fighting a Geopolitical war, instead he was a revolutionary seeking to bring new and beautiful music to the English congregations. Though ridiculed and ostracized, Smart would publish new songbooks with soaring music and harmonized melodies. Eventually, his music took hold in the Church of England and then around the world. A miraculous step, since he was blind. Though he was never able to read the words of Montgomery’s Nativity, upon hearing the words, he set them to a new tune and published what we know as “Angels from the Realms of Glory.”

A song that begins in the heavens and ends in our hearts while calling us to “Come and worship, come and worship, come and worship Christ, the Newborn King.”

The first verse tells us of the Angels flying from glory to proclaim the Messiah's birth.

The 2nd verse reminds us of the message the angels gave to shepherds who found that “God with man is now residing.”

The 3rd tells of the Sages, the Wisemen, who traveled far, following “Brighter visions beam afar” as they sought the Desire of nations.

What we know as the final verse tells of the saints bending at the altar awaiting the Lord’s return.

But that true final verse… that verse that has long since been removed because it spoke of sinners and doom and guilt… that verse is our verse. That verse reminds us of why we needed a savior in the first place. That verse is the verse that reminds us that “While we were yet sinners, Christ gave himself for us.” Those words ring out:

Sinners, wrung with true repentance,

Doomed for guilt to endless pains,

Justice now revokes the sentence;

Mercy calls you.

Break your chains.

That is the verse that reminds us that Christmas is about more than just the Sweet Little Jesus Boy. Christmas is more than the Baby Jesus in a manger scene.

John 1:1, 14

Christmas is about the fact that Jesus, the Logos, the Word was in the beginning, with God, and the Word was God.

Christmas is about God becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Literally living with us, as one of us, or as theologian Tex Sample interpreted John 1:14 – Jesus pitched his tent in our camp… Jesus came to us and is with us, Jesus is mobile and goes where we go.

Angels from…

And that is the reason for the joy that Paul spoke of… when life is great – Rejoice – and when life gets you down… rejoice – he even says it more forcefully… after all that we go through in life, because of or in spite of the hardships we face – Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice. Joy comes from what God has already done, not what we do. Joy comes because the chains have been broken and we can worship the Newborn King!

While we’re on the topic, a little word about joy here… too often we get joy confused with happiness. We think that Jesus came so that we can be happy. Let me ask you – do you think Paul was happy as he was floating in the Mediterranean Sea during a storm… after the ship he was on was destroyed? Do you think Paul was happy as he was beaten and flogged? Do you think Paul was happy as he sat in jail in Rome awaiting his execution? Of course not… but still he was able to write these words:

Rejoice in the Lord always, and I’ll say it again! Rejoice!

That’s because joy has nothing to do with happiness.

Happiness is about happenings.

Joy is about Jesus.

You need to remember that. If you are letting your life be ruled by your happenings, by your situations, you will never have joy.

Because joy is not about happenings, it is about Jesus.

20thCentury theologianPT Forsyth once said,

“Unless there is within us that which is above,

We shall soon yield to that which is around us.”

As we approach the celebration of our Savior’s Birth… as we prepare for our Lord’s return, as we live out these days of Advent, may we seek the joy that comes, not the feeling of happiness, but from Christ within us.

Angels from…

James Montgomery didn’t let the loss of his parents interfere with his Joy.

He didn’t let his homelessness quench his spirit and love of writing.

He didn’t let his situation stand between him and his savior.

His call to the Irish and English readers then is the same call to us today.

May we heed that call to come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the Newborn King.

After all, isn’t that what Christmas is about?… Worshipping Jesus and sharing the joy of the life he has given us with the world as we await the return of our Savior!

Let us pray…