|
|
|
|
The Message in the Music: Joy to the World The 12th Sunday after Pentecost, August 3, 2008
We’re concluding our Message in the Music series this morning with a hymn most people probably wouldn’t be expecting to sing the first Sunday in August. No, we’re not celebrating Christmas in the summer, but we are looking at a hymn that has been associated with Christmas, Joy to the World. First, as has been our practice during this series, let’s look at a few notes on this hymn. The hymn was written in 1719 by Isaac Watts, the son of a pastor. Watts himself did not like going to church, and one of the biggest reasons for this was the music used in the church. One day when he was 15 years old he was complaining after a church service about the music they had just used, and one of the deacons turned to him and said, “Then you give us something better.” Watts had a new hymn and music written for the hymn by that evening, and his hymn writing just took off from there. He was also a sickly person, and apparently not exactly very good looking. Once, a young lady had fallen in love with the ‘new’ musician on the block, and through letters made a connection with Watts, and eventually asked him to marry her. Upon meeting him, though, she took back the offer and left him. She wrote later that Issac Watts was “only five feet tall, with a shallow face, hooked nose, prominent cheek bones, small eyes, and deathlike color.” She said, “I admired the jewel, but not the casket that contained the jewel. Here’s the thing about this hymn: it was never meant to be specifically for Christmas – that’s not why Watts wrote it! Watts based this hymn on the second half of Psalm 98, the Psalm we chanted earlier. If it wasn’t written for Christmas, what was it written for, then? For the answer to that, let’s go to God’s Word. I invite you to open your Bibles to the last book of the Bible, Revelation, and we’re going to our reading from today, chapter 21. All along in our sermons I’ve been saying that the books that follow the book of Acts are called “Epistles”, literally ‘letters’, and they tell us how we should live in light of the Gospel of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Revelation, though, is not an Epistle, it is called an apocalyptic book. In fact we get the word ‘apocalypse’, and how that relates to the end of the word, from the book of Revelation. The opening phrase of the book of Revelation in English is, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” In the Greek it’s, “Apocalupsis Iasou Christou.” The book of Revelation records what the last remaining disciple of Jesus saw when Jesus came to him. It was written by John, the same disciple that wrote the gospel of John, and the books 1st, 2nd and 3rd John. John was put into exile on the prison island of Patmos for being a Christian under the Roman Emperor Domitian. He was eventually released and spent the last few years of his life around Ephesus, some 20 or 30 years after the letter of Ephesians was written to the church at Ephesus. Again, we’re going to Revelation 21, and we’re starting with the first verse: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Joy to the world! The Lord has come! Let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing! Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns! Let men, their songs, employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains repeat the sounding joy! Jesus is coming back! Did you hear? Our Savior is coming to claim His own and make a new heaven and a new earth! This is actually what the hymn “Joy to the World” is about: Jesus’ coming back to earth the second time. When He comes again there will be no more crying, shame or sorrow. When He comes again there will be no more war, pain or death. When He comes again all the old things will pass away, and everything will be made new; made perfect. Move your eyes to the following page to Revelation 22, verse 1-5: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever. No more let sins and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground! He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found! No more hard labor! No more fighting the ground to produce crops for people and livestock! No more wondering about Jesus – we will see Him face to face. We will see Him with our eyes and hold Him in our hands! All the questions and fears we’ve ever had will melt away. Those aches and pains you have today you will never have again! The loved ones who died in Jesus will be there; the saints we’ve read about and heard about and learned about in the Bible will be there. Noah will be there, and will be able to tell us about the wildest water ride ever[1]! King David will be there and will be able to tell us a true early version of Rocky Balboa and the impossible-to-beat- fighter from another country[2]! (For those of you who didn’t get that, remember Rocky IV? He fought the giant Drago from Russia? Beat him in the last round…? Remember? “I must break you”?) Peter will tell us about walking on water[3], and Paul will tell us about being taken to heaven[4]. And then John will come and tells us it’s better than he remembered Jesus showing him the first time when he wrote Revelation. I know there’s a lot of differing opinions out there on how the world will end. I understand there are some hot-button phrases like ‘Tribulation’ and ‘Rapture’ that gets used a lot. I’m not going to go through all of the different theories on the end of the world in this message, except to say that they are just that: theories. We don’t know exactly what the end will look like in terms of these hot-button phrases. Bring one person up here who argues one way, and I can bring someone else up here who argues just as persuasively another. However, we do know what will happen just before Jesus comes back: There will be wars and rumors of wars all over the globe, and kingdoms will rise against kingdoms, like what we see all over the Middle East. There will be earthquakes all across the earth in places where there ‘shouldn’t be’ earthquakes, like earthquakes that have struck the Midwest of the United States in recent years. There will be famines ravaging parts of the earth, like what is currently going on in Ethiopia and the Sudan. False Christ’s and false prophets will appear and deceive many, many people, like what we see in so many cults today that claim to have the real truth that ever other religion, especially Christianity, doesn’t. Lawlessness will increase, and the love and many will grow cold, like we see in people who kill one another without feeling any remorse after.[5] “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness {in other words, sounding like Christians} but denying its power. {in other words, denying true Christianity and freedom found in the boundaries of Christ}" [6] "{People} will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." [7] Does any of this sound familiar? Sound like anything that exists today? Good! Get ready! Joy to the World, the Lord is coming! “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn {They will mourn because they will realize then that it’s too late}. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And He will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other."[8] He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love! Jesus is coming, did you hear!? Now here’s the big question for you this morning: are you comfortable with the idea that Jesus is coming soon? Does that give you a sense of peace and joy and anticipation, or does it fill you with a sense of foreboding, anxiousness and fear? It should not be a scary thing for those who believe in Jesus as their only savior from sin, Satan and eternal separation from God. For those who believe, it’s a comfort to know their Savior is coming. It’s a comfort because it means we’re going Home. One final note on the Revelation passage: In Jesus’ day, when a man was betrothed to be married to a woman, everyone would get together for a ‘betrothal party’, and then the man would return to his father’s house. While at his father’s house, he would build on to the existing structure to make a place for him and his bride to live. When the father agreed the building was complete, he sent his son to gather his bride and bring her to her new home. While the man was building on to the father’s home, the bride-to-be waited and prepared herself for his coming with her bridesmaids. Together, they were always on the look-out for the groom. When the groom was released by his father to go get his bride, he would try to sneak in and surprise her – it was like a game. No one knew when the groom was coming to get his bride except the father, and when the groom came, it was a surprise to the bride who had been waiting for him. Jesus said in the book of John that He is going to heaven to prepare a place for us, and He will come back to take us to heaven with Him. That’s why in Revelation, Christians are called the ‘bride’ and Jesus, the ‘bridegroom.’ One day the Heavenly Father will say, “Go get ‘em”, and Jesus will come to take us to the place He’s been preparing for us. It will be a day like any other day, a day when we least expect Him to come. It could be this morning before we leave this building; it could be tomorrow; next week; next year. God only knows (literally!) In the meantime, we wait in joy knowing our Savior is coming, and we work like crazy to introduce as many people as possible to Jesus so they will be one of those He takes to heaven. We rest secure that our confessed sins are forgiven and forgotten, and we look forward to the day when the sky splits in two, and Jesus comes to take us to be with Him. Take joy and peace and comfort in that. Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Amen |
