Merry Christmas! The Advent season of waiting for Christ’s coming is almost spent and the Christmas time of celebration is upon us! This year, our children learned “Joy to the World” for the first time to sing in their Sunday School Christmas program. As I sang the carol, too, while milking, it refreshed my attention to the text in a new context:
Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her king; Let ev’ry heart prepare him room And heav’n and nature sing…
Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ, While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy…
No more let sins and sorrows grow Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found…
Isaac Watts, Joy to the World, stanzas 1-3
As I listened carefully to the text of all creation praising God in this carol and all creation celebrating the reverse of the Fall into sin, I was reminded of this verse:
” For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 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 ourselves, 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. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
Romans 8:19-25, ESV
As we celebrate Christ’s birth in Bethlehem this Christmas, it is good that we remember that He really came and was really born as a real, weak, helpless baby and that he grew into a real man who really died on the cross to pay for our sins and rose again as the seal of his victory. But lets also remember that he is coming back to restore all things to their original created perfection – and not only for us, but for all creation, even the cows, that wait with longing for the new heaven and new earth. And let’s find hope in the fact that he comes to us daily through his Word and Sacraments to journey with us until that day.
Merry Christmas, and God’s blessings in the New Year!