The Weary World Rejoices

[Title Photo Attribution: Original Photo Source; CC 2.0]

As an American, it seems that all I have to do to be saddened is simply turn on the news. Just a mere examination of current events leaves me spiritually exhausted, weary in the depths of my heart. In a season of love, I look around and see so much hate… the fighting in Ferguson… the political struggles for control, not law …the senseless crimes… the devaluing of women, the unborn, the elderly, and the veterans… and on and on the list goes. I am probably most saddened that these disheartening events, which seem to have come to define America of late, do not reflect the vast majority of Americans today. Most of them, like you and me, are (as Michael W. Smith puts it) “in a world crying out for peace”… and so there is a great tension that hangs in the balance, between a desire for peace and a working against it.

The thing about tension is that it demands release. It longs for it. Sixpence None The Richer reminds us that we are to LOVE the tension in our lives, but only “when it is like a passing note to a beautiful, beautiful chord”. The creation of harmonic tension in music leads to a cadencial release (usually) when the music concludes. That, at least to me, is what brings satisfaction to the ears. The same is true in the Christian life… we LONG for the world to be made right and for the tensions to cease:

“For we know that the whole creation has been GROANING TOGETHER in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but WE OURSLEVES, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in THIS hope we were saved.” (Romans 8:22-24)

I think it is my love for harmonic resolutions in music, coupled with a longing for the greatly visible problems and conflicts of this world to finally be resolved in Christ, that makes me turn to the hymnal as one of my greatest sources of comfort when the world seems to be falling apart around me. The writers of many of our beloved Christmas carols (especially those in the mid-1800’s) certainly understood how troublesome and saddening this world can be. They knew that the true miracle of Christmas was that Christ came as the solution to the troubles of the world, many of which continue to sadden our hearts even to this day. Listen to just a few well-known examples of the world Christ came to redeem:

“Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever over its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

–Edmund Sears, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (1849)
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day (1864)

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts the blessing of His Heaven
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in”

-Phillip Brooks, O Little Town of Bethlehem (1868)

“Long lay the world in sin and error pinning, 
till He appeared and the soul felt it’s worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…

The King of Kings lay, thus, in lowly manger
in all our trials, born to be our friend.
He knows our need. He guards us from all danger.
(or To our weakness, He’s no stranger”
Behold your King. Before Him lowly bend”

– Placide Cappeau, O Holy Night (Mi­nuit, chré­tiens, c’est l’heure so­len­nelle), 1847;
trans­lat­ed from French to Eng­lish by John S. Dwight (1812-1893)

Why do you think church (and John Lennon) often emphasize Christmas as a time of peace? It’s because we look around and see that there is still a need for peace. Our longing for that peace will continually be unsatisfied… unresolved… until the Prince of Peace comes again to wipe away every tear from our eyes. That’s why our hearts are saddened when we turn on the news. We are longing for Christ to come back and clean up this mess.

My encouragement to you, this Christmas, is not to seek so much to understand the things of this world that trouble you, but rather to seek the newborn Savior, whose peace “surpasses ALL understanding” (Philippians 4:7). While I agree that we should all work hard in our desire to “let there be peace on Earth”, I don’t think the cry for that peace should be “and let it begin with ME”. Rather, let it begin with a Holy God of redemption, incarnate in the form of a tiny baby in a manger. THAT is where true peace begins. That is “the thrill of hope” in whom “the weary world rejoices”.