Gratefully, today we sing what many for centuries only said
By Dean Collins
It’s hard to celebrate Christmas without Christmas music. But it was hundreds (and some historians suggest thousands) of years before there was any recorded Christmas music. I don’t want to diminish the value and even importance of singing Christmas music as a part of our celebration of Christ’s birth. However, a careful reading of Luke 2:11-14 says that after the angel announced the Savior was born in the city of David, the angels said, “Glory to God in the highest.”
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!’”
It wasn’t until the mid-1700s that Handel wrote the music we hear in our heads and in our churches every time we read the Christmas story.
St. Hilary of Poitier in the fourth century may have written the first Christmas hymn. “Jesus Refulsit Omnium” is translated as “Jesus, Light of All the Nations.” The tune isn’t very catchy and hasn’t caught on as a Christmas classic!
As we celebrate Christmas this year and in the future, we might remember that while Christmas celebrations usually include the familiar passages from Matthew, Luke, John, and Isaiah along with many wonderful Christmas carols, several other New Testament passages clearly relate to the birth of Jesus.
One passage is 1 John 4:9-10:
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Doesn’t this passage tell the Christmas story? God made visible his love for humanity by sending his Son to the world. And he came seeking and loving us long before we sought him. His love was so great and complete that he gave us life in payment for our sins!
But it might have been the apostle Paul who wrote the first Christmas song. We have no melody, but Bible scholars suggest that 1 Timothy 3:16 may well be a hymn of praise. And it tells the good news of Christ’s coming:
“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”
The Scriptures of old and the carols of the last 200 years help us remember what happened on that first Christmas morning. God sent his Son to be born of the Virgin Mary, live a sinless life, die for our sins, and all the rest that Paul lists here. And at Advent we celebrate both his arrival on Christmas and also the confidence we have that his Word is true and he will return to earth to renew and restore all things.
So go ahead and say it and then sing it out loud: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!
Your time with God’s Word
Luke 2:11-14; 1 John 4:9-21; 1 Timothy 3:16 ESV
Photo by David Beale on Unsplash
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