Text: Philipp Doddridge (1702-1751) Tune: attr. Thomas Haweis (1734-1820)
Hark, the glad sound! The Savior comes,
the Savior promised long;
let every heart prepare a throne,
and every voice a song.
He comes, the prisoners to release,
In Satan’s bondage held;
the gates of brass before him burst,
the iron fetters yield.
He comes, from thickest films of vice
to clear the mental ray,
and on the eyeballs of the blind
to pour celestial day.
He comes the broken heart to bind,
the bleeding soul to cure,
and with the treasures of his grace
to enrich the humble poor.
His silver trumpets publish loud
The Lord’s high jubilee;
Our debts are all remitted now,
Our heritage is free.
Our glad hosannas, Prince of peace,
thy welcome shall proclaim,
and Heaven’s eternal arches ring
with thy belovèd Name.
REFLECTION
The beginning of John the Baptist’s cry in Luke is filled with joy and hope. We are to prepare the way because the Savior is coming to make things right—the highways, the valleys, the rough places made plain. Doddridge expresses the joy we will have when he comes.
Just now as I am writing the family is cleaning the house, baking the required Christmas goodies, and putting up Christmas decorations. A joyful and exciting time, especially for the children who are assembling their Christmas lists and checking them twice and many times more. While there is nothing they really need, they understand the need for preparations—it is part of the event. God has come in the flesh and gives us gifts we are thankful for, things we need for life and health. He wants us to revel in the good of his creation as we do during Christmas.
But the joy is there because we know the gifts we have under the Christmas tree are wonderful but not ultimate. His Son is the ultimate. Without the knowledge of another world, another dimension, all the good things of Christmas would simply be evidence of our hedonism and not very satisfying. When those things become our gods, and we worship them and our own efforts, God has to bring judgment and an end to them. That is why the end times for all of us can be terrifying. Have I worshiped the living God, or only my own idols which the judgment will take away?
All our Christian festivals celebrate the intersection of the spiritual with the mundane, where God gives us more than hints of heaven. And the glimpses we get of heaven through them give us joy in our earthly gifts because they are gifts from God. Happy Advent!
HYMN INFO
Philipp Doddridge was a pastor to Non-conformists in England, which meant not in the Anglican church. Because of that he could not go to school in the English universities. While he was offered a chance to enter the Anglican ministry, he refused. For many years he served his Non-conformist congregation in Northampton where he also established a school for other students from the Non-conformist congregations around him. When it was clear he was dying of tuberculosis, Lady Huntingdon, a patron of many such men, like Isaac Watts, offered to send him to sunny Lisbon for a cure. Doddridge agreed to go there, he sad, because he could as well go to heaven from Lisbon as Northampton. He died soon after arriving there. His hymns, published posthumously, numbered around 400: Hymns, Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures (1755). They have receded in popularity over time.
Hymnal editors have not liked "the eyeballs" in stanza three so have left them out. Some traditions think of it as a Christmas hymn. There are several popular tunes. Lutherans tend to use Chesterfield attributed to Thomas Haweis, an English surgeon who left his practice to study for the Anglican ministry, but was removed from his parish for his Methodist leanings. He served as chaplain to Lady Huntingdon. He died while serving the Chapel in Bath.
LINKS
Plexus Resources Handel tune
Lutheran TV Haweis' tune
David Oates
Oasis Chorale
Koine
NB: Jesus the Harmony would make a nice Christmas present. It can be read devotionally over the entire year, one poem for every day.
"With these 366 sonnets, remarkable in artistry and number, Gracia Grindal has made literary history. The scriptural and theological knowledge that supports these poems is vast, but it is the imagination infused with the holy in poem after poem that reveals the poet's grace and skill and the astonishing work of the Spirit." --Jill Baumgartner, Poetry Editor, Christian Century, and professor of English emerita, Wheaton College
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