074 - Hark How All the Welkin Rings

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hark the herald angels sing. Hey, wait a minute.

What? Who's Harold? Harold. Yeah, who is Harold? Harold's angels. We've been singing this all our lives.

I always wondered that as a kid. Well, this famous carol today, we're going to look at this wonderful Christmas morning and talk about the newborn king today on More Than Ink. Well, Merry Christmas to you all. Merry, Merry Christmas. This episode is airing right on Christmas Day. And by the way, I'd be curious if you're listening to this right now on Christmas Day, could you drop us a note?

Go to morethanink.org. Oh, that's a good idea. And just tell us, you know, I don't know. But we decided to take a detour around Exodus just for the day because it is Christmas Day. This is, you know, December 25th. And to look at one of our favorite Christmas carols, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and look at the biblical content. And like I had said last week, this in my book, I mean in my book, has the most theology packed in the fewest number of lines of any carol that we sing, I think. And so we're going to see if that's true.

It's right up there. We didn't say, though, that we are here at our dining room table like we always are. We are, that's true. And we are enjoying a quiet morning, a contemplative morning. I think the older that I get, the more contemplative and quiet I have become toward Christmas as the significance of God entering humanity has penetrated me more deeply in recent years.

And because all of our kids have grown up and left home, so we tend to have fairly quiet holidays. Exactly. And that's just fine with us.

That's just fine with us. So yeah, let's take a look at Hark the Herald Angels Sing. We'll take a look at these words. By the way, it's not an accident that there's so much theology packed in this. It's written by Charles Wesley. Yeah, you did a little reading about that.

And I went back to remind myself. I remember he's the younger brother of John Wesley. And the two Wesley brothers did a lot together in the early 18th century. In fact, the life of Charles Wesley, who wrote this song, his adult life is around the time of the Revolutionary War.

So he died about 10 years after the Revolutionary War. But he was in England, and he and his brother had profound conversion experiences coming to the Lord in the early 20s. And as a result, ended up traveling much of England talking Evangelically about who Jesus is. And so John Wesley is the one who started the Methodist movement. Actually, Methodism was a criticism. A lot of people looked at him because they said, you guys are just too disciplined when it comes to reading the word and living this life. Well, disciplined and structured, there were behaviors that they expected and imposed upon people who followed their way of worship. Yeah, and they saw following Jesus as the word we use today as very intentional.

It's not something that just kind of fluffs around the edges. It's at the core. So that was John and Charles Wesley. And Charles Wesley went on to write over 6,000 hymns. Most of which I was raised on because I grew up at Wesley Methodist Church.

Wesley, there's that name. So a lot of the Wesley brothers hymns were things that I cut my teeth on as a child, although I didn't know God in those days. I was still singing all that theology. Yeah, lots of theology, deep theology. So we come to Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and we see that theology poke out. This is the result of the life of a man who, actually, he converted to the Lord just 10 years before he wrote this. So as a middle-aged man, this just bubbled out of his life.

Okay, so this does more than poke out. This is so deeply ingrained in his thought patterns that Scripture from across the entire Bible gets washed through his thinking and forms poetry, singable, metric, hymnal poetry. It always has astonished me. There are some artists today who have that same gift, and I'm always amazed at the power of the words that they write. Yeah, and in an illiterate culture, it was very handy in terms of people understanding truth. Right, to teach theology. Yeah, to teach theology, to grasp it, and also to carry it around very portably. So it's a great way to do just that, and that's what this has done.

We can do that, too. I encourage you, if you've never memorized the words to this song, or you've never sung more than the first verse, well, you need to, because the theology gets deeper and more profound as the verses progress. So let's dive into it.

What do you say? We've got three verses, and the original was three verses. And the opening couple lines were slightly changed over a couple decades, partially because one word went out of use, welkin.

Welkin. Yeah, he reads in our heart how all the welkin rings, and nobody knows what welkin is. That means, actually, the heavenly host.

Yeah, it's an archaic word for the expanse of the heavens, where the stars are. Yeah, yeah. So by the time you get after our revolution, that had changed and finally got stuck in place with the words we've got today. So shall we just read them? Yep, let's read a verse at a time. Okay, verse one.

Go for it. Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. Joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies. With the angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king.

Yes. Now, when I was a kid, I used to think it was herald angels, right? Like it was like one word. Hark, the herald angels sing. And I thought, what is a herald angel? But it's a herald, an angel who is a messenger, who is a herald, an announcer. The early messenger.

Like blowing a trumpet. Is the herald. Hark, hark, pay attention.

Yes, yes, yes. The first messengers are the herald messengers. I always thought it was heralds messengers, like the name herald, and I always wondered, who's this guy, herald, and who are his angels? And I don't know of an angel named herald. I know a Michael and a Gabriel, but I don't know a herald.

Yeah, well, anyway. Well, I mean, the whole account from Luke 2 about the angels coming, bursting upon that quiet scene with the shepherds is amazing to read. And this first verse of Wesley's hymn is largely just, it's all Luke 2.

It's Luke 2. And about that entire scene about the angels coming and saying what they say, they don't actually say glory to the newborn king. They don't, but they do say that today, I have good news, today is born for you, a king. Right. For you humble shepherds, for you nobodies out here in the dark. Well, and they say, you know, is born to you this day in the city of David, a savior. Right. That kind of brings the keenness to it. Right.

Because we knew that a king would come through David's line, and that's exactly what happens here. Yeah. And what do you make, I think something that's really grossly misunderstood, his line, he says peace on earth and mercy on the mild. Peace on earth, yes. So what is that promise of peace anyway? Well, what kind of peace are we talking about?

Yeah. Because at Christmas, everybody likes to talk about, oh, let's have peace, let's be peaceful. Peace on earth. Oh, Christmas is the promise of peace. Well, Christmas is the promise of peace with God. Right.

Reconciled with God, which only happened through the person of his son become human. So, you know, Jesus himself said in Matthew 10 34, I didn't come to bring peace, I came to bring a sword. Yeah. Right. That the whole world will divide over this one. Yeah.

Jesus himself will be divisive, depending on who you think he is. Right. And the peace that God is bringing to earth at the birth of our Savior is the way into peace with God. Right.

Exactly. And many times when you see peace here, it strongly implies a cessation of warfare. Not just kind of zoned out, but a cessation of warfare. And there was actually, before you come to the Lord, there is a war between you and God, it turns out. And so when this peace happens, it's kind of a cessation of the division between you and God. And a narrowing of the distance between the two of you because of this opponent nature you had with God.

So you're going to read something. Yeah, I have Colossians 1 19 and 20 in front of me. And it's at the end of this incredible description of the deity of Christ. Verse 19 says, for it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him. Right, there we have the pleasure of God dwelling completely in the Son. And through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross.

Through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. So the only way we have access to peace with God is through that sacrificial death. Right. Of the Son of God. Right. And so if you realize that this is something that Christ buys with his blood for us, something that God accomplishes, and something that draws us near to God, then when you read the actual words of what the angels said, and I've got them in front of me, it's interesting, it goes against some of the more cultural interpretations of the peace on earth kind of thing. If you just listen to it closely, this is from Luke 2 14. So glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

Ah. Oh, that's a wholly different idea. It's a different idea than just peace on earth.

Peace on earth, or God is blessing you because he's happy with you. Right, right, exactly. Well, we know that faith is what pleases God.

Yes, yes. So God's favor is being poured out on those who believe in the promise. Yeah, and the result is a relationship with God. That's why I love when Wesley writes this, peace on earth and mercy among, he explains it in the next breath. God and sinners reconciled. Reconciled. That's where the peace comes from. Yeah. That's the peace. So that's a nice definition.

I like how he adds that onto that. And it's also not just intended for the nation of Israel, for the Hebrews, it's intended for everyone. So Wesley adds, you know, all ye nations rise. All the nations.

All the nations. Right, and that's also in what the angels had said. So clearly this is a promise that goes to all mankind, but it's a promise of peace that is founded and centered on a restored and redeemed relationship with God. That is only made possible through the sacrifice of his son. Exactly, and so that's why the angels are so excited at the birth of this one, because this one, Jesus is the one that makes this all possible.

This is the pivot point of all history. Right, right, yeah, so born in the city of David, a savior, a savior who is the Messiah, the promised one, the one who would rule, the one who would bring together mankind in relationship with God. So glory to the newborn king. Listen up. Listen up.

This is a big, big deal. Glory to this newborn king. Oh, we need the next verse. Next verse, verse two.

Okay, I love this verse. Should I read this one? Sure, go ahead. We'll alternate, then I'll let you read the last one, which is awesome.

Yeah, well this is pretty good too. Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord. Laid in time, behold him come, offspring of a virgin's womb. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to dwell. Jesus, our Emmanuel. Hark, the herald angels, sing glory to the newborn king.

Looks like the incarnation to me. Oh, my soul. When I come to sing this verse, it stops me in my tracks every single time. This distillation of God becoming humanity in this beautiful poetic form. The line that always stops me is veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity. Veiled in flesh. I have thought a lot about that veil a lot.

This is not just weird language. The idea of the veil in scriptures is actually a really significant one. We know that the purpose of the veil in the temple was to separate the holy of holies from the holy place. But a veil can conceal something, but it also can reveal something. Yes, yes. And so are... And it also defines a passage. Okay, so yeah, you're moving from one place into another. If you think about a veil revealing something, think about how the filter in your sunglasses works.

It cuts down the glare so you can see what's really there. Yes. Well, that's exactly what happened when the Son of God became human flesh. He laid aside His glory to make the invisible God visible. And that's what John says in the beginning of John 1. Right, the Word became flesh. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And dwelt among us. And dwelt His glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And then he goes on to say in verse 16 or 17 and 18, the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth were realized, brought into reality by Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who's in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

Yes, yes. He has made God knowable. So that's why Wesley's line is so good. Veiled in flesh that God had seen. It enables us to see who God is. And if you remember at the Last Supper in that upper room conversation that Jesus had the last night of His flesh, they asked Him, Lord, just show us the Father. And He said, don't you get it?

If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It occurs to me too, and I didn't look it up, shame on me. In Hebrews, it talks about the veil. Yeah, I have it.

Did you look it up? Yes, it's astonishing. It's Hebrews 10, 19 and 20. Yeah, you've got to listen to this slowly.

This is interesting. Oh, since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh. Let us draw near with sincere hearts.

I won't read the rest of the passage. But that idea that His flesh was the veil that was torn in order to open the way for us to come into the holy presence of God, that fulfills our understanding of the veil in Scripture from Exodus, which we're talking about now, all the way back to Hebrews when we were talking about that a few weeks ago. Yeah, defines the passageway into the presence of God.

Right. And that's done through His flesh, through His death. Yeah, it's veiled in flesh the Godhead seal. The Godhead seal. You want to see God?

Wow. Look at Jesus. Yeah, hail the incarnate deity. And incarnate in its etymology just means flesh. Right, made of flesh.

Made of flesh. Right, right. So another part I liked about it, it's just before this late in time, behold Him come. Right, right. We skipped over that. No, no, that's okay. We're kind of jumping.

I was so anxious to get to the veil. Yeah, late in time. Late in time? What? Is He late or is He on time?

He's actually on time. But it made me go back as we were looking at Hebrews and the opening of Hebrews, this opening, chapter 1, He says, you know, God has spoken to us through the prophets, but last days He has spoken to us in His Son. So, yeah, it is the last days. When the Messiah comes in the flesh, that's the beginning of the last days and we're still in those last days, but they were started in the coming of Jesus, the birth of Jesus. Yeah, this is the beginning of the end. Yeah, now is the day of salvation. Exactly.

The time is late. Yeah, yeah, and so that's it. And when He says late in time and offspring of the virgin's womb, well, that's from a very famous prophecy. So it was prophesied and it's going to happen at a particular date on the calendar and it did and it's during this last time. And that famous passage is Isaiah 7, 14.

Yeah. Behold, a virgin will conceive. Virgin will conceive and bear a son. Yeah, and it was such a big deal that if you recall, Mary and Joseph, when they're being brought into the story by Gabriel about what's going to happen, Mary gets a, she gets a direct visit with Gabriel and he explains it to her.

Joseph never gets a direct visit. I think it's a dream. Yeah, like four dreams actually. But in one of those dreams, this passage in Isaiah 7 is reiterated again. So that in that dream, he says this is exactly the fulfillment of Isaiah 7, 14, a virgin shall conceive. And guess what? Mary is that virgin. So this is a pre-plan on God's part that comes about at exactly the right time at the beginning of the end of times, the last days.

So that's what you have. Emmanuel. Emmanuel. God with us. Yeah, now that's a fascinating, I mean that's in the Isaiah 7 thing and that's how Wesley closes off this verse right here. Pleased is man with men to dwell, with man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.

And Emmanuel means? God with us. God with us. Do you know that has always been God's intention from the very beginning of scripture, right? He made Adam and Eve to dwell with him in the garden and when that fellowship was broken, by the time we come around to Exodus, we're going to get to this in a few weeks, God says, I want to dwell with you right in your midst. And so even the way the nation of Israel camped in the wilderness was a model of that with the tabernacle right in the middle of the camp. Yep. God wanted to have a physical representation of the fact that his desire was to be amongst them in the middle of them. Presence among them. God with us.

Yeah. And even when you see Jesus close to the time he's drawn back up into heaven, you know, he talks about the many, you know, my father's house, there's many places to live, you know, because I want you to be with me. It's the with idea. So the whole idea of coming and finding peace with God, which is the center of that is our relationship with God. It's the with God part, the entire Bible is about relationship with God. And sometimes we think that we're going to go and be with God when we go to heaven. But you know, we God took the initiative and he came to be with us first. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. He came.

He came and got us. Yeah. Well, let's move on to the third verse. Okay. Oh, I get to read this one. You get to read this one.

Okay. Hail the heaven born Prince of peace. Hail the son of righteousness, light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die.

Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth, hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness. The first half of this comes directly out of Malachi three, Malachi four, four, four, two.

Yeah, I just had my, my page open to the wrong place, Malachi four. It's so beautiful. That's what this whole verse is. Sometimes we see in that second line, hail the son of righteousness spelled S O N. Right. That is an incorrect quotation. It is.

It is the sun, S U N of righteousness. Let's read Malachi four. Do you have it in front of you? I have it in front of me. Okay.

Well, you can read it then. Cause I'm talking a lot. Yeah. This is God speaking the first person, but for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness. Shall rise with healing in its wings and you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. I just, I have always liked that less.

I see these calves jumping around like this is the best thing ever. Yeah. For you who fear my name, the son of righteousness, S U N, the son of righteousness shall rise like a sunrise with healing in its wings. And Wesley decided to use the play on words S O N, which is fine. It's exactly the same. Well, yes, it means the same thing. But you know, the imagery of the sun rising is a new day, new light. And even Peter uses in one of his letters, the imagery of the morning star arising in our hearts. Right. A new day is dawning as we step into the light of relationship with God. So that's really the imagery here.

It is so beautiful. Yeah. And that very, that very famous proclamation of the father of John the Baptist, you know, when he gets his tongue back. Oh yeah, Zechariah. Zechariah, yeah.

I'm kind of turning to it right now. It's at the end of Luke 1. And this whole imagery of this sunrise, like a new day is dawning, is part of this proclamation that, you know, he's filled with God's spirit and this is really God speaking through him.

And why am I having a problem? Oh, there it is in Luke 1 78, because of the tender mercy of our God whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. It's just, and to give light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death. So that's it. It's a new day, just like a sunrise is a new day. This is a brand new day for all of humanity with the birth of the Prince of Peace.

And risen with healing in his wings. Well that imagery from Malachi, you know, it's the idea of when the sun peaks over the edge of the horizon and those rays give the impression of wings. That's the picture. I mean, it's very visual.

It's very visual. But it also implies strongly the fact that where the light is landing is on people that need healing. That need healing.

There's a deep problem here. And that's also part of what Zechariah says about this tender mercy of God. And that, you know, this light will shine on those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death. And they have a problem, and they have a need, and the sunrise is the beginning of the fix for that need.

Yeah. The imagery is just great. So the birth of Jesus is like a gigantic sunrise with healing for mankind that will result in peace through the blood of the Savior and then relationship with God where that's going to be found. Oh, what's the… Oh golly. There's just too much to talk about in this verse too. Well okay. But the next line, mild he lays his glory by. Oh yeah. That's a reference to Philippians 2, I think, which says that, you know, even though he was God, he didn't regard being God as something to be grasped, but he laid aside all of his rights and privileges in order to become human.

So I'm paraphrasing. Right. But you go and read Philippians 2, starting in about verse 4 or 5, and read clear through where it winds up, where every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That's what he laid aside in order to become human. For the purpose of gaining for us, like Wesley says right after that, born that man no more may die. Right. Eternal life for us. And who are those born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them a second birth. Right. A start over, a new start, a new spiritual birth in that sense. Well Jesus said you must be born again or you're not going to see the kingdom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Hail to dimension 2 at the beginning of this, hail to heaven born prince of peace, another famous Christmas passage in Isaiah 9. Isaiah 9.

Yeah, 9, 6. The prince of peace, the prince of peace, the one who makes it happen. So many comments. Son of righteousness, he's the righteous one very clearly. That's everywhere in scripture so I won't belay too much of that.

We are just like running out of time. I just want to encourage you if you've been listening today to take a quiet moment sometime and hum your way through this with the words in front of you and use your own words to respond in worship to God with using this hymn as a model. Yeah, this is such a creative collection of powerful truth on Wesley's part. It's a great way to meditate on the truth of where we are with God and why Jesus was born. So on this Christmas morning when we're so distracted by when are we going to have breakfast and when are we going to throw in the stuff. Remember the fact that this is the sunrise from on high that visits us. This is the sunrise with healing in his wings to solve the problem of those who sin in darkness and the shadow of death. That's the best gift to mankind, what Christ did for us. So Merry, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you all and we hope to see you next week as we come back to Exodus and join the story again of the great rescue of the Hebrews, not unlike the great rescue of us through the birth of the sun.

So I'm Jim and I'm Dorothy. Join us next week on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content.

To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. I'm sure I like that anyway, but I think we sang too much.