Let heaven and nature sing RUMC CHRISTMAS EVE

Let heaven and nature sing

RUMC CHRISTMAS EVE

⁷ Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
    the world, and all who live in it.
⁸ Let the rivers clap their hands,
    let the mountains sing together for joy;
⁹ let them sing before the Lord,
    for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
    and the peoples with equity

That 98^th Psalm inspired Isaac Watts to write the words

“And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing.”

Watts was a pastor in the congregational church in England at the turn of the 18^th century with a love of rhyme and poetry, and a dislike for the traditional church hymns of his day. His father dared him to come up with something better so he started writing what he hoped would be the Contemporary Christian Music of his day.

The problem: no one in the church wanted Contemporary music.  Watts was condemned as a heretic and a tool of the devil because he rewrote the words of the psalms in modern verse. Refusing to give up he wrote no less than 600 hymns. 15 of which you would recognize as being in our hymnal.

50 years later a music prodigy named Lowell Mason, who loved the classical music of George Fredric Handel wrote the tune we love and paired it with Watts' lyrics.

Joy to the world, one of our most beloved Christmas carols was not originally a Christmas carol at all. There are no angels, no shepherds, nor is there a Baby Jesus anywhere in the text. The only reference to Christmas “The Lord Is come” was in Watts mind actually a reference to Jesus Second coming, not his first. That was until Trinity Choir recorded it in 1911 and it climbed to number 5 among the hits of 1912.

Intended to be Christmas or not, the words that caught my attention are “And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing.”

To us Christmas is a human celebration of an earthly baby born in an all too earthly stable.  We talk of stables, and mangers, and shepherds, and little drummer boys, but that is only the Lower story. The incarnation of God in Jesus at Christmas is so much more than that. The Psalm describes the sea, the rivers, and the mountains breaking forth in song.

Psalm 55 is similar

You will go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands.

You see the coming of the messiah is not just an earthly event. It has an upper story  element.   Christ is a gift to the entire universe. The word of God becoming flesh and living among people The upper story includes angelic visitations, the stars breaking forth in light as never before. (Think star of Bethlehem) Angels breaking out in glorious song (Think heavenly choirs of angels) and all creation bursting forth in glorious celebration that as the message Bible says, “God put on skin and moved into the neighborhood.”

The upper story that started with creation and Eden, moved past the flood and Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the exodus, judges and kings and prophets, All in order to call people into relationship with God, has taken a completely different route. God, the creator, heavenly divine power, sustainer, king of all, melody of Zion has come to be one of us- as a baby born to two peasants in a stable in a little corner of the world called Bethlehem. The God who spoke through kings and prophets, the God who said I will never forsake you has come to love us, teach us, heal us help us and call us to repentance. The ever merciful and slow to anger judge of all the world has himself come to die on the cross for us.

For that, we and all of creation break forth in joyous song. We and all the earth offer worship and praise to the one and only God, who is born as a baby this very night. We and the entire universe sing praise and glory to the king who is come this night.

And heaven and nature sing,

and heaven and nature sing,

and heaven, heaven and nature sing.