Carols 3 - Angels from the Realms of Glory

It truly is a joy to worship with you here in Common Ground. I’ll be back with you on January 2 when we have a joint worship service and Joey is out of town.

Last week, after worship, we celebrated as families joined the church and others took their next step in mission and ministry here at FUMC. I am so thankful that we are reaching new people, that we are welcoming new families, and that we are seeing so many continue to return from online worship to in person worship. On-line worship is good. It serves its purpose, but there is just something special when the Body of Christ gathers in community to proclaim God’s glory, pray together, and break open the Word of God and share together.

Over the past couple of weeks, Joey and I have been sharing in all our services about some of the Best Loved Songs of Christmas. What a better way to spend this season of Advent, considering songs that share hope, portray peace, and today share Joy! One of our resources has been a book by a good friend of my wife’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 share a little of the back story, then get 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. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians first. Paul wrote this letter early in his ministry, some time around 52AD. Things are going well. He is a Roman Citizen so he can move about freely, He is accepted by the other Christian leaders like Peter and James at this 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, there’s no pandemic, you can find toilet paper, you know… life is good.

But what if people don’t like you? What if you are being mistreated? What if we are in the middle of a pandemic and the world isn’t what we thought it would be? 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 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 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 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. That is who, 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, James would step up and run the paper.

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 papers content continued, landing James in jail: once for writing about the glory of freedom expressed in the Fall of Bastille in Paris. Another time 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 song books 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. He likely never read the words to Montgomery’s Nativity, but 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 New Born King.”

The first verse tell us of the Angels flying from glory to proclaim the Messiahs 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 is long since been removed because it spoke of sinners and doom and guilt… that verse is our verse.

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 6lb 8oz Baby Jesus.

Christmas is about the fact that the 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 one of us, or as one theologian 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.

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.

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 a 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.

20th Century theologian PT 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 something within us – something that is from above.

May we heed that call to come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the new born king.

As the team comes back up for our final song….

Prayer – Seek Joy…

Be at the back to visit with you…

Always available to you for anything…