Sermon Tone Analysis

Series Introduction

Background of “O Holy Night”

From :Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas published by Zondervan

“The strange and fascinating story of "O Holy Night" began in France.

In 1847, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure was the commissionaire of wines in a small French town.

Known more for his poetry than his church attendance, it probably shocked Placide when his parish priest asked the commissionaire to pen a poem for Christmas mass.

Nevertheless, the poet was honored to share his talents with the church.

Using the gospel of Luke as his guide, Cappeau imagined witnessing the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

Thoughts of being present on the blessed night inspired him.

By the time he arrived in Paris, "Cantique de Noel" had been completed.

Moved by his own work, Cappeau decided that his "Cantique de Noel" was not just a poem, but a song in need of a master musician's hand.

Not musically inclined himself, the poet turned to one of his friends, Adolphe Charles Adams, for help.

As a man of Jewish ancestry, for Adolphe the words of "Cantique de Noel" represented a day he didn't celebrate and a man he did not view as the son of God.

Nevertheless, Adams quickly went to work, attempting to marry an original score to Cappeau's beautiful words.

Adams' finished work pleased both poet and priest.

The song was performed just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

Initially, "Cantique de Noel" was wholeheartedly accepted by the church in France and the song quickly found its way into various Catholic Christmas services.

But when Placide Cappeau walked away from the church and became a part of the socialist movement, and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was a Jew, the song--which had quickly grown to be one of the most beloved Christmas songs in France--was suddenly and uniformly denounced by the church.

The heads of the French Catholic church of the time deemed "Cantique de Noel" as unfit for church services because of its lack of musical taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion."

Yet even as the church tried to bury the Christmas song, the French people continued to sing it, and a decade later a reclusive American writer brought it to a whole new audience halfway around the world.

Not only did this American writer--John Sullivan Dwight--feel that this wonderful Christmas songs needed to be introduced to America, he saw something else in the song that moved him beyond the story of the birth of Christ.

An ardent abolitionist, Dwight strongly identified with the lines of the third verse: "Truly he taught us to love one another; his law is love and his gospel is peace.

Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother; and in his name all oppression shall cease."

Adams (the song’s music composer) had been dead for many years and Cappeau and Dwight were old men when on Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden--a 33-year-old university professor and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison--did something long thought impossible.

Using a new type of generator, Fessenden spoke into a microphone and, for the first time in history, a man's voice was broadcast over the airwaves: "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed," he began in a clear, strong voice, hoping he was reaching across the distances he supposed he would.

Shocked radio operators on ships and astonished wireless owners at newspapers sat slack-jawed as their normal, coded impulses, heard over tiny speakers, were interrupted by a professor reading from the gospel of Luke.

To the few who caught this broadcast, it must have seemed like a miracle--hearing a voice somehow transmitted to those far away.

Some might have believed they were hearing the voice of an angel.

After finishing his recitation of the birth of Christ, Fessenden picked up his violin and played "O Holy Night," the first song ever sent through the air via radio waves.

When the carol ended, so did the broadcast--but not before music had found a new medium that would take it around the world.”

A moving, and perhaps unexpected background story to this beloved Christmas carol.

A song that was once “outlawed” is now sung by millions every year, and I suggest what makes this such a meaningful song for us today is why any worship song is meaningful is its content.

It’s not just the music, but the message.... the words.

A line in the song (which we will utilize next week for our offertory), is the inspiration for this year’s Christmas series.

Here’s the line:

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices

We are familiar enough with hope.

Many of us even understand that Christ offers His people much more than potential relief from the strife of our lives, but certain relief.

Certain hope that we can count on.

But what about how hope is described here: A thrill of hope… Is hope thrilling?

We certainly can identify with this particular line when it references a weary word.

We are weary.

Weary still from 2020: the pandemic, presidential election, and a host of other changes, losses and pain that we all are experiencing.

And 2021, in many ways has been more of the same.

Fundamental to living the Christian life is persevering.

We need to be an persevering people… an enduring people.

We believe in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.

This doctrine teaches that God preserves His people in their salvation so that they will persevere and never fall away from Him.

It is on the basis of this doctrine that the people of God have hope.

We will, by God’s grace, persevere.

But when it comes to our perseverance, we often think of it it a context of trial and suffering.

Perseverance is often thought of what is necessary to get through the drudgery of life.

And to be sure, perseverance is necessary because life is difficult… really because of sin.

But, persevering is the Christian’s way of life.

Is the Christian life merely getting through it?

Is it just contending with drudgery?

I suggest the song gets it right.

The hope we have in Christ, even in the face of our weariness, is thrilling.

So, I want to suggest that there is a certain wonder in our perseverance.

Those who are in Christ, that is, those who are united to Him are meant to experience a certain wonder in day-to-day living.

No, we’re not oblivious to the pain and suffering that exists in our lives, but we face it with hope and wonder because we belong to Christ, and nothing can overcome Him.

So our Christmas series is titled

The Thrill of Hope: Recapturing the Wonder in our Perseverance

Sermon Introduction

As you might have noticed in the bulletin today, we will be in the book of Leviticus this morning.

Now, I’m not sure what you think of when you think about this book.

If you even have any thoughts, you may think this book to be out of touch with what you and I typically face day-to-day.

We may assume that it’s a book full of ceremonies, laws and practices that are no longer relevant rendering this book irrelevant to us today.

To be sure, many of the practices we see the people of God practice in this book are no longer in play for the church today, but their meaning and purpose and what they are meant to point us to is very relevant for us.

We are not undertaking an exposition of this book today (although that may be coming in the future), but I do want to provide a little context before moving onto our particular text.

This book can be divided into several sections.

Briefly they are

1.

The various kinds of sacrifices the people of God must make are described in chapters 1-7

2. Chapters 8-10 describe the preparation of Moses’ brother Aaron as the High Priest.

3.

An outline of the purity laws are provided in chapters 11-16

4.

And various laws about holiness are described in chapters 17-27

The section in which our text appears in the one in which the purity laws are outlined.

We’ll get into what is meant by purity in a few moments, but what we will see in these 2 verses is an exhortation to be a certain kind of people in light of the fact that our God is a certain kind of God.... the only true God to be sure, but very specific.

And when we take time to consider the kind of people we are to be in light of the kind of God we worship we will recapture....

The Wonder in Seeing Beyond Ourselves

FCF: The fact that the holy God is the holy God of His people is often under-revered by God’s people when striving to live the holy lives He has called us to live.

Define “revere”: regard as worthy of great honor; deep respect and admiration

Big Idea:

We must revere the fact that the holy God is our holy God in order to live the holy lives He has called us to live.

Analytical Question:

What must we embrace by faith to properly revere our holy God.

Notice, we are not asking, what must we do to properly revere our holy God.

We do not take action to revere God.

Revering God is the byproduct of His redemptive work in His people.

But to get more specific than to say we need to revere God, we offer some specific realities we see in this text that we need to embrace by faith in order to revere God.

What are these realities?

We must revere that the holy God is personal.

(44-45a)

AQ: What helps us to revere that God is our God?

As much as we need to clearly see that God is holy, we must also see that He is a personal God who is intimately connected to the intricacies of His people’s lives.

In the well known throne room scene in Isa.

6, after hearing the angels declare, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory, Isaiah said, I am a man of unclean lips… In other words, clearly seeing the holiness of God will make us more aware of how unfit we are to be in His presence.

But the holy God was a personal God to Isaiah.

God called Isaiah to serve Him, and proclaim His word to a people who needed to hear.

What’s important for us to understand, when it comes to the book of Leviticus is what is meant by terminology that is used throughout the book.