The Beauty of the Second Verse

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...or third, fourth, but fifth is usually stretching...

Joy to the World. O Holy Night. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. I love me some Christmas carols. Like a good percentage of the population, my Christmas CDs begin heavy rotation the day after Thanksgiving and stick around until the New Year.

But this year I've decided that I'm a fan of the lesser-known verses. Who decides the first verse anyway?

What a tremendous understanding of the Gospel and the power of God these writers had. If we understood what we were saying, we'd be on our feet shedding tears of gratitude and singing at the top of our voices. There would be no peaceful, serene Christmas services. They would be raucous praisefests.

from: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Christ, by highest heaven adored;
Christ, the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of the Virgin's womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with man to dwell;
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
from O Holy Night:
Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
from O Come, All Ye Faithful:
Yea, Lord, we greet Thee,
born this happy morning;
Jesus, to Thee be glory given;
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.

Comments

berry said…
I will admit. In the middle of the 3rd special music solo at the Christmas Eve service we attended I started getting teary-eyed as the soloist sang those latter verses of O Holy Night. The beauty of the truth in those verses and the reality I long for got the best of me.

And then I had to figure out how to look respectable again and not sniffle my running nose because the people around me are not accustomed to seeing people cry during the Christmas Eve service.
December 27, 2007 at 6:37 PM
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