Sounds of the Season
Welcome! It’s December the 22nd, and we’re continuing with our very first Redeemer Digital Advent Calendar! This year, in the lead up to Christmas, we’ll be producing daily content which we hope blesses you, encourages you, and reminds you of the hope that we can celebrate this Christmas!
We’re continuing today with the last of our 4 Advent blogs which have been released every Tuesday until Christmas to make up a series called ‘Sounds of the Season’. Each week we’ve been taking the opportunity to appreciate the deeper meaning behind Christmas music, with a focus on a specific Christmas carol that helps to shed light on the true meaning of this Christmas season.
Today, we look at my personal favourite carol - Joy tothe World! You can hear a version below.
Creation is groaning.
In Romans 8:19-22, creation is described as ‘waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the songs of God’ and that it has been ‘groaning with the pains of childbirth until now’. This year has been a year of difficulty for all of us, but it is not us alone that groans, but creation itself has been groaning, ever since the fall.
It’s not difficult to see the effects that the actions of humans have had on creation, and to recognise the reason that it groans, however as we sing Joy to the World this Christmas, there is an opportunity to remind ourselves that there is hope! Both for creation, and for us!
Heaven and Nature Sing!
Though we recognise that the world in which we live is broken, in many ways beyond repair, we also know as Christians that God promises this won’t always be the case! We sing about it in Joy to the World…
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,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.
This verse is inspired by Revelation 22:1-5, where we read of the glorious future promised to those who follow Jesus! A place where there is no curse, no darkness, no pain!
In his book The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis gives us a glimpse of what it might feel like to arrive there.
It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right forehoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried: ‘I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up! Come further in!
(C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle [New York: HarperTrophy,1984], 213.)
This is the feeling that we sing about when we sing this carol at Christmas!
Joy to the World
I think that’s the reason that this is my favourite carol, because its title describes the effect of Jesus’ birth. He came to bring Joy to the World! The reason that we can look forward to an eternal future where heaven and nature will sing, is not because we’ve found the solution ourselves, but instead because Jesus came! He came to live and die for us, to pay the price for our failings, and bring an end to the groaning of creation forever!
We are in a season of great pain, turmoil and difficulty this Christmas, but it is into the midst of all of those temporary feelings that Jesus comes, and he comes to bring unshakeable, everlasting joy. Joy to the World!
Merry Christmas!
