Welcome to Hope College’s fourth annual Advent devotional!
This years theme, Heaven & Nature Sing, is from a line in Isaac Watts’ classic hymn “Joy to the World”:
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come;
let earth receive her King,
let every heart prepare him room,
and heaven and nature sing.”
“Joy to the World,” written in 1719, is one of the most popular English Christmas carols ever written, and it was inspired by Psalm 98:
“Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!”
—Psalm 98:4
It’s easy to see why Watts’ song became a Christmas favorite. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is the greatest occasion for joy and celebration that the world has ever known. The King of the World came to us as a newborn babe in Bethlehem. Joy to the world, indeed!
But what makes the song most interesting (to me, at least) is that Isaac Watts didn’t write his hymn about Christmas: He wrote it about the Second Coming of Jesus, not the first. This dual nature of the carol — that it looks both backward to Christmas and forward to Christ’s second coming — makes it especially suitable for our Advent reflections this year. Advent is the time when we wait for our annual commemoration of the Nativity as a small picture of our greater waiting for Christ to return.
There’s one more reason I like this line, and that’s the insistence that nature itself is singing for joy. The idea that nature can express itself is nothing new, of course. All of creation has been groaning, Saint Paul tells us in Romans 8:23; Jesus himself tells us that even the rocks can cry out (Luke 19:40); and the psalmist wrote that “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).
But here we see that at the coming of Jesus Christ, nature doesn’t groan or cry out or declare or proclaim — no, it sings! More than that, it sings for joy. Join the song, won’t you?
If you follow along with us, every day of Advent — beginning tomorrow, December 1 — you will find a new devotional reflection by a member of the Hope College faculty and staff. (If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe.) Each scripture passage will be adapted from the Revised Common Lectionary readings for Advent.
Please join us for this Advent journey toward Christmas Day!
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.