Hymns4Him

One way to gauge the spiritual health of a congregation (or a denomination … or a person) is to review the themes of sermons heard and digested over a period of time.  This will be the result of what pastors have chosen to preach, what has been taught and published by seminary professors, and what books a person has chosen to read.  For example, consider in your own church what themes have been most common and frequent on Sunday mornings.  Even more telling, what themes have rarely if ever been touched on in a clear way from the pulpit.

In many cases in each of those three dimensions (local church, denomination, and individual) we will discover that there is a decidedly primary horizontal focus (sometimes to the exclusion of anything else!): our relationship with one another, being kind, forgiving, helpful, patient, etc.  There is often a deficiency in the vertical dimension of our lives, our relationship with God, our spiritual health in His eyes, our hunger for Him, even themes of divine warning and judgment.  The God too often proclaimed is not the God of the Bible, but one who is all love and mercy, a God who is never angered by the iniquity that boils up out of sinful hearts.

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The days in which we live, like many times before us, are filled with chaos, conflict, and confusion.  We are tempted to think that things are out of control, but as Christians we know better than that.  We have access to a peace that passes understanding, because we belong to a Savior who passes understanding!  The troubles around us are real and dangerous, from radical political philosophies to immoral behavior to brutal wars.  But we understand that sin has produced all this and more, and that there is both an ultimate solution and an immediate source of comfort, both of which enable us to rejoice in the midst of all this.

That attitude of worship has always been one of the great qualities of a deep faith in the Bible and in the God of the Bible.  He not only has a wonderful plan for His creation and His redeemed children.  He has promised to sustain us as He works all things according to the design of His will (Ephesians 1:11). And so we can continually live before Him with songs of praise in our hearts and on our lips.  The theology that underlies that is that God is sovereign as He sits on His throne, ordaining all that take place in His world. It’s not that we shut our eyes to what we see or ignore the reports that we see on the news.  It’s that we’re secure in the confidence that God is in control and that He has proven that we can trust Him.  As William Cowper wrote in his hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” “He plants His footsteps on the sea and rides upon the storm.”

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January 22, 1973 was one of the saddest days in American history. It was on that day that the United States Supreme Court announced their infamous decision about abortion in Roe v. Wade, claiming a constitutional right for women to have the lives of their unborn children put to an end by abortion practitioners.  In the more than 50 years since then, more than 66,000,000 children have been put to death in their mother’s womb in the United States, a staggering number, which is more than ten times larger than the number of souls killed in the Nazi holocaust of World War II in Germany and Poland. Today, the number one cause death in America by far is abortion! Though the Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision on June 24, 2022, the practice continues across the nation. Much of that has been at Planned Parenthood facilities (which some have understandably begun to call “abortuaries”), which continue to receive millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize their work.

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Jesus’ letter to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2 identified many very commendable things about the church in that city. They were doctrinally discerning, diligent in ministry activities, and persevering in serving the Lord.  But there was one overwhelmingly devastating problem, they had forsaken their first love.  The first and greatest commandments is that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind (Matthew 22:37).  The believers in Ephesus had that love in the beginning.  But by this time that love for Jesus had grown cold.  It’s a powerful lesson to teach us that busyness and orthodoxy are no substitutes for devotion for the lover of our souls.

Two of the Bible’s most prominent themes are God’s love for us and our love for Him.  The cross is the greatest proof of God’s love for us.  And the essence of the Christian life is our love for Him.  The first motivates and thrills us, and the second shapes how we please Him.  As our Bibles are full of passages about both, so also are our hymnals full of compositions about both His love for us and our love for Him.  A quick check of the topics in the table of contents in the front and those in the topical index at the back will not confirm that, but also make an impressive demonstration of that.

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If you’re taking note of major seasons in the church year, don’t forget Epiphany.  Not all denominations observe this sequence of seasons, but most at least observe dates nearest the Christas and Easter seasons.  There is no biblical mandate for this, though in the Old Testament God regulated definite events and times, something that was set aside with the coming of Christ. The earliest reference to a liturgical calendar seems to have been in a sermon by the early church father John Chrysostom in Antioch in December, 386. 

Among the liturgical dates observed today is Epiphany, sometimes called “Three Kings Day,” and celebrated on January 6, twelve days after Christmas Day. On this day, Western Christianity recognizes Christ’s manifestation to the Gentiles. The Gentiles were represented when the Magi visited the child Jesus and showed how God’s gift of the Good News is for everyone.  Eastern Christianity observes Jesus’ baptism on this day. His baptism revealed his identity to mankind. Epiphany celebrates God revealing himself to the world in the East or the West, and especially with the arrival of the Magi affirms that salvation is for the whole world, Gentiles as well as Jews.

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The birth of Jesus Christ is described differently among the four Gospels. Mark makes no reference to it or gives any specifics about it, simply jumping in at the first chapter with Jesus’ public ministry. His account starts with the Savior’s baptism by John in the Jordan River, and then returning from His temptations in the wilderness, preaching the same message as John: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  It’s to Matthew and Luke that we look for our Christmas Scripture readings.  Matthew gives us Jesus’ genealogy through the line of Matthew, and then the worship of the Magi.  Luke is more thorough with the four nativity songs, the annunciations, shepherds, and manger scenes, followed by His genealogy through the line of Mary.

But when we come to the Gospel of John, we have something startlingly different, yet also widely appreciated in the scripture readings for Christmas services of our churches.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke probably wrote 60 years after Jesus’ birth.  John, on the other hand, most likely wrote more than 90 years after those events of the incarnation.  His account of the birth of Jesus goes back into eternity, long before Bethlehem!  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In chapter one, and throughout his Gospel, the Holy Spirit has given us through John a more mature theological account of what all this meant.

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When most people think about Christmas music, they seldom think about Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).  But this greatest of all church musicians has given us a large amount of wonderful music to celebrate the Savior’s birth.  These include not only organ chorales on Christmas hymns (several can be found in his “Orgelbüchlein” – “Little Organ Book,” with which all organists are very familiar), but also large works like his “Christmas Oratorio” and his “Magnificat” (Mary’s song, found in Luke 1).

One of those Christmas songs that is found in hymnals today is “O Jesus Sweet, O Jesus Mild.”   The words come from an author several decades before Bach’s birth.  But the music which he has arranged for the text has given longevity to the hymn.  Bach drew from a musical composition by an earlier German Lutheran musician, Samuel Scheidt, an organist and teacher and prolific composer of the early baroque period.  As arranged by Bach, the combination of words and music have the feel of a lullaby, with a rocking “beat” that gives the impression of a cradle swaying back and forth.

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Of all the Christmas songs in print, here’s what one writer has called “the most underrated.”   It was included in the 1990 “Trinity Hymnal,” when the editor found it in a paperback InterVarsity Christian Fellowship songbook.  He had heard it on a Christmas recording with a smaller choral ensemble from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida years earlier.  He has since discovered several churches that include it every year in their special Christmas music festival services.  It deserves to become more widely known and utilized.  It has also been a pleasant surprise to discover several recordings of it being sung in churches as an anthem recently.

It is “Lovely Child, Holy Child,” written in 1968 by David Nathaniel Johnson (1922-1987). Born in San Antonio, Texas, he was an American organist, composer, educator, choral clinician, and lecturer. He studied organ and composition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (1940-1942). Between 1942 and 1946 he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps/Air Corps in India, Burma, and China, receiving a Meritorious Service Award and campaign ribbons. He continued his music studies at Trinity University (Texas) with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1950 and Master of Music in 1951 and Ph.D. in 1956. He also earned the associate certificate from the American Guild of Organists (AAGO). 

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If one looks for “contemporary” Christian Christmas songs, there will be a number listed in a web search.  The problem for many folks is that they usually don’t “sound” like Christmas!  We have grown up hearing and singing beautiful traditional Christmas melodies from childhood, and they have become part of our “Christmas DNA.”  Though newer songs can be fine compositions musically and textually, will they ever replace “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World,” and “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing?”  Probably not, or should we say, we hope not!

And yet there are some newer Christmas songs that might in time reach that classic status.  One such song is probably going to turn out to be “Joy Has Dawned upon the World,” written in 2004 by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.  The Getty music team has performed it regularly in their Christmas concerts, including from New York City’s famed Carnegie Hall.  It is included in their Christmas CD and can be found by multiple performers in You Tube videos.  If your congregation wants to learn a new contemporary Christmas song, you can’t find one better than this.  Make it your December “Hymn-of-the-Month.”

Keith Getty (b. 1974) and his wife Kristyn, the primary soloist in their concerts and CDs, have become very well-known throughout the English-speaking world over the last 25 years.  They are the primary Christian hymn-writers of the 21^st century.  They write and perform songs with great substantial doctrinal content, and with an Irish flair in the music that almost makes one want to wear green (the color of “The Emerald Isle”).  Their first great “hit” was “In Christ Alone,” which has been the number one hymn across the US and the UK.  It was written in 2001 by Keith along with fellow Irish singer and song-writer Stuart Townend (b. 1963).

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Many of the traditional dimensions of our Christmas celebrations come from the Victorian era in England.  We picture light Christmas snow falling on carolers as they sing their way through London’s streets on the way to a candle-lit Christmas Eve service in St. Paul’s Cathedral.  And so many of the most familiar Christmas carols come from late 18^th century England, like “Once in Royal David’s City” and “See Amid the Winter’s Snow.”  There are many exceptions, like Charles Wesley’s 18^th century “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” and Isaac Watts’ “Joy to the World.”

But there are wonderful Christmas songs that have their origins long before Victorian England, even further than the years of the Wesleys. Examples include Johannes Olearius’ “Comfort, Comfort Ye Me People,” Martin Luther’s “From Heaven High I Come to You,” and even some from other countries, like the Polish carol “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” and the French song “Angels We Have Heard on High.”  We can go back even further to pre-Reformation times to find the original texts of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Good Christian Men, Rejoice.”

Not surprisingly, in most modern hymnals there are more hymns about Christmas than any other topic, except perhaps hymns about Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Not only is Christianity the one religion that is most characterized by congregational singing.  Within that, it is these two points in the earthly ministry of the incarnate Son of God about which we find the greatest focus in Christian music.  That should be no surprise since, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, these are the very center of the gospel itself.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

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