As we enter into another glorious season of advent I am going to reflect on a few of the traditional hymns, carols and wonderful new Christmas songs. There is so much depth in each of these that I felt if would be interesting to find out a little about these musical messages.
The song Hark the herald angels sing, was written by Charles Wesley and was supposed to have been inspired by the sounds of London church bells while he was walking to church on Christmas Day. Wesley wrote the “Hark” poem about a year after his conversion and first appeared in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1739 with the opening line of “Hark, how the welkin (heaven) rings.”Scholars tell us that George Whitefield, a student and eventual colleague of Wesley’s, adapted the poem in 1753 into the song we now know today. It was Whitefield who penned the phrase “newborn King.”
It is said that the initial music that Charles Wesley used for his poem was a little slow and solemn, so the hymn didn't reach it's full potential. It was only a hundred years later, when Felix Mendelssohn wrote his score for the words, that the poem really came alive.
Of course the most profound part of the poem has to be the words, which portray the Angels proclaiming the birth of the Messiah. The words of the Hymn point us to the passage in Luke 2:
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
Living in Grace
D3LM3
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