Liturgy Lessons, December 11 – Third Sunday of Advent (Dayspring)
Prelude
Welcome/Announcements
Musical Introit – O Come, O come Emmanuel
CTW: Isaiah 60:1-3; Isaiah 9:2-3
Opening Hymn: Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus (#196)
Confession of Sin: Malachi 3:1-4 and “Come, Lord Jesus”
Assurance of Pardon: Jeremiah 31:31-34 & Isaiah 59:20
Songs of Assurance: Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies (Morton); Hark, a Thrilling Voice is Sounding
Advent Reading: Isaiah 9:1-7
Congregational Prayers
Tithes and Offerings
Advent Doxology: First Noel (last verse)
Sermon: Casey Bedell (Luke 2)
Meditation
Supper Hymns: See, Amid the Winter’s Snow (#199); Thou Who Wast Rich (#230)
Closing Hymn: Go, Tell It on the Mountain
Benediction
Sung response: “Gloria in Excelsis Deo”
Postlude
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”
Isaiah 9:2
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
2 Corinthians 8:9 (ESV)
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
Text: Charles Wesley (vss. 1,4, 1744); Mark Hunt (vss. 2,3, 1978) Tune: HYFRYDOL, Rowland Hugh Pritchard (1855)
As a singing people, the church has an astonishing creative legacy! Consider the victory songs of Moses and Miriam (Ex. 15:21), David (1 Sa. 18:7) and Jehoshaphat (2 Ch. 20:21), the laments of the Israelites (Psalm 137), the hopeful praise of Paul and Silas (Acts 16), and the heavenly chorus around the throne (Rev. 5:9-10). God’s creative spirit has breathed through the ancient Psalms, medieval chant, reformation hymnody, gospel refrains, and modern choruses. From Wesley to Watts, Bliss to Bonar, and even Gaither to Getty, songs have poured into the sanctuary in every generation. Among that astonishing arsenal, there are “silver bullet” hymns, whose text captures the essence of a moment in the church calendar. Charles Wesley seemed to hit a bullseye with each season, perhaps because of his astonishing output (over 9,000 hymns). If you fire off enough verse, you are bound to hit the target a few times! For Easter, he gave us “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” and for Christmas, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” For Advent, we have this quintessential text, which perfectly captures the two-fold purpose of the season – remembering the birth of Christ, and re-awakening a longing for his second coming. Wesley’s original text consisted of two stanzas of eight lines, and he uses a lot of repetition to hammer home some key themes. Notice how in verse 4 he repeats the word “born” three times to emphasize the incarnation, and highlight its ultimate purpose. Christ was born to “deliver,” “reign,” and “raise us to thy glorious throne.” In contrast to other Advent hymns that focus exclusively on the Christmas narrative or the unfolding drama in Bethlehem, Wesley’s verse contains beautiful eschatology and points us to the hope of Christ’s second coming. This popular hymn has been set to many tunes. Our hymnal uses HYFRYDOL, a Welsh tune composed by Rowland Prichard in 1830, and commonly associated with “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.”
Scripture References:
Vss.=1-2: Rev. 3:21
Vss.=3-4: Isa. 61:1-2, Luke 4:18-19, Rom. 6:22
Accompaniment and text to vs. 1 and 4: https://www.opc.org/hymn.html?hymn_id=134
Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendor
Text: Frank Houghton (1894-1972) Music: French Carol Melody, arr. 1930
This relatively young hymn is one of my favorite in all hymnody. It has an accessible, poetic text set to an exquisite, lilting French melody. It is inspired by 2 Cor. 8:9. The original French verse “Quelle est cette odeur agreeable?” is translated loosely as “what is that nice smell?”. In the Oxford book of carols, the sensual and flowery original is translated as follows:
Whence is the goodly fragrance flowing, stealing our senses all away,
Never the like did come a-blowing, Shepherds, in flow’ry fields of May,
Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing, stealing our senses all away?
What is that light so brilliant, breaking, here in the night across our eyes?
Never so bright, the day-star waking, started to climb the morning skies!
What is that light so brilliant, breaking, here in the night across our eyes?
Bethlehem! there in manger lying, find your Redeemer, haste away.
Run ye with eager footsteps vieing! Worship the Saviour born today!
Bethlehem! there in manger lying, find your Redeemer, haste away.
The version in our hymnal, though not as true to the original French, is certainly a poetic and theological upgrade. It is full of beautiful comparative imagery. Just note the contrasts in the first verse alone:
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor, all for love’s sake becamest poor
Thrones for a manger didst surrender, sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
However, for all of its sublime phrases, the one that stands out is the most humble: “All for love’s sake.” We repeat that line twice in each of the first two verses, and then the hymn reaches a climax in the final verse where we are reminded that the purpose of it all is worship. So, perhaps the original wasn’t so bad after all. It invites us, with childlike wonder, to “haste away” and “find the redeemer.” “What is that goodly fragrance?”, it asks. That is the perfume of Christ’s all-exceeding loveliness and the scent of fire from He who is the very flame of love. Jesus, Savior and King, we worship you!
Sheet Music: http://www.rturner.fastmail.fm/hymnal_project/hymns/Thou%20Who%20Wast%20Rich%20Beyond%20All%20Splendor.pdf
Choral Version (original French): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyWDomKr9AA
Guitar/Folk version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB4BQjsDijc