The Third Week of Advent 2025
Advent Meditation for the Fifteenth Day of Advent: Sunday, December 14, 2025
“In the Bleak Midwinter”
TEXT written by Christina Rossetti (1872) based on Luke 2:8-14
TUNE: CRANHAM by Gustav Holst (1906)
ONLINE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/cBCYZ9jIJkI
As we begin the third week of Advent I thought it might be good to introduce some of the songs that, while liturgically best grouped as Christmas Hymns, are nonetheless often programed into the worship services of our churches in the Sundays leading up to the nativity. This poem with the rather gloomy title struck me as fitting a pre-Christmas mood, both in its meditative music and its deeply reflective text.
You have probably heard this rather simple yet profound observation: “We don’t see things as they really are, but as we are.” There may not be a song in our hymnals that more perfectly proves this point. Penned by a 19th Century English poet, her verse strikes me as something that Dickens might have chosen for a musical soundtrack to A Christmas Carol. The descriptions of the birth of Jesus, while out of place for any biblical narrative of his birth in Bethlehem, well fit an English December of frosty winds, frozen landscapes, and those snowy, gray skies which we come to expect—and perhaps enjoy—in the Northern hemisphere.
Aside from these out-of-place-and-time references to the weather, the author has given us what, I believe, is one of the most theologically profound and personally compelling statements of faith that Christians may ever be invited to sing in public worship. Coupling the birth of Jesus with his hoped-for return, Ms. Rosetti offers this powerful, indeed confessional witness:
“Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain…heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.”
I suspect had the writer of the prologue to John’s gospel known of this verse he would have wanted to make it a postscript to his logos poem, “in the beginning was the word…” (John ch. 1)
If you are like me, however, it is the final verse that summons us to that manger scene, and from it into the world in which we find ourselves wrestling with what it means to worship the beloved. As in the very best sermons that sound as if we are being singled out to answer to God, the poet leaves us pondering what we might lay at the feet of our infant Lord that would both change us and the world so altered now in the light of his birth:
“What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb, if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; yet what I can I give him: give my heart.”
Living at such a historical remove from that time when shepherds and magi are said to have been witnesses to God’s most revelatory self-expression, we are at a loss to emulate what they offered or fully grasp what they must have felt. But in this winter world of our existence, one that is much less a wonderland walk than a time enshrouding us in bleakness, we yet have one thing and only one thing—in fact the very best of gifts—that we may ever offer to Christ. And that is the fullness of our being: our mind, our body and, as the poet would have it, our heart.
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Advent Meditation for the Sixteenth Day of Advent: Monday, December 15, 2025
“Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light”
TEXT: vs. 1 written by Johann Rist (1641) , translated by John Troutbeck (1833-1889), inspired by Luke 2:8-14; vss 2-3 by Fred Pratt Green (1986)
TUNE: ERMUNTRE DICH by Johann Schop (1641), harmony by J. S. Bach (1734)
ONLINE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/D7E0jM0F3M8?si=UJiGqXPGyfAgbnG5
Among the songs that stir the musical inklings of musicians, few stand in a higher place of respect than those either written by, adapted by, or harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach. Most Protestant hymnals are sure to have a few, and they have been joined to texts that span most of the seasons and spiritual emphases of the Christian year. This particular hymn, one of thirteen in the United Methodist Hymnal (1989 edition) features the composers characteristic harmonies that choral musicians quickly recognize and find quite “singable” in their predictably precise and mathematical-structured chord progressions. It is well suited to serve as the vehicle for these verses written by a near-contemporary of Bach’s, Johann Rist, and, more recently by Fred Pratt Green.
The angelic proclamation that startled slumbering shepherds near Bethlehem serves as our invitation to awaken ourselves to the heavenly light which entered the world when Jesus was born. But the poets don’t linger among the Judean hillsides but transport us, not to the manger as much as to an adoration of the Christ whom we first meet on this night of nights. Their theological affirmations flow in describing, not the child “weak in infancy” but as the Lord of heaven and earth, for whom they offer these lofty ascriptions:
our confidence and joy shall be, the power of Satan breaking, our peace eternal making…
our brother, he comes, not mighty to destroy, to bid us love each other;
what deep humiliation secured the world’s salvation!
The metaphor of light is one that our biblical ancestors often equated with God, where it is juxtaposed with its absence, darkness, depicted as both its antithesis and its personification with evil and death. Light is mentioned as the first of God’s creative words in Genesis and it serves as the climactic thought when the writer of John’s prologue symbolizes the significance of Christ’s incarnation in Jesus: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:3) It is fitting that we sing this hymn during Advent as it is a recognition of and celebration of the light of God which is, in Jesus’ birth, “where the new life starts for all who seek and find you.”
The hymn concludes, not with a prayer or appeal for deliverance, but an affirmation of the lasting significance of the incarnation of God in Jesus, not only for those who lean on him in faith, but to the entire world:
To you the honor, thanks and praise, for all your gifts this time of grace; come, conquer and deliver this world, and us, for ever.
Two poets, living more than 300 years apart in time and geography, reveal in the witness of their words how enduring has been the faith of those who have seen in the birth of Jesus the full indwelling of God.
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Advent Meditation for the Seventeenth Day of Advent: Tuesday, December 16, 2025
“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”
TEXT written by Edmund Sears (1849) based on Luke 2:8-14
TUNE: CAROL by Richard Storrs Wills (1850)
ONLINE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/LgV3x7aNH7c?si=C-nVIwtLiJPcpX9t
At long last, a Christmas carol! With apologies to my more liturgically correct friends, I will begin to include some of the more familiar and beloved songs within this review of the music we will often sing in the weeks leading up to Christmas. And what better place to begin than with “O Little Town of Bethlehem?” How many of us, when singing its’ upbeat, melodic line would guess that it was written at a time when our nation’s future hung in the balance, our once lofty dream of unity unraveling in political and sectional discord over slavery. But to the Rev. Edmund Sears, a Unitarian clergyman from Massachusetts, it was the singing of those Christmas angels that he was certain we needed to hear, more than ever, should we ever hope to find real peace and goodwill in this strife-torn earth.
Fittingly it is through the singing of angels that the composer connects the biblical past of Luke’s nativity night to the contemporary world in which, like him, we still find ourselves looking heavenward for answers to our deepest spiritual longings and social dysfunctions. After introducing the angelic chorus in verse 1, the poet brings home their message in the stanzas that follow:
Verse 2 entreats us to turn our ears toward the heavens to hear the voices of angel song floating over and cutting through the din of those Babel sounds that so loudly confuse and overwhelm this sad and weary world;
Verse 3 bids us to trust that the singing of angels yet promises us rest from the crushing weight of the slow and arduous upward climb of history where we are bent low under the painful and discouraging weight of our labors just to survive;
Verse 4 lifts our spirits by the assurance that God’s designs for this world, foretold by prophets of old, are now unfolding in our time, with peace sure to prevail over all the earth, in accordance with and fulfillment of angel song.
When singing this as a child my grasp of its profound message was lost by winged heralds suspended in the sky, their long white robes and commanding voices providing my imagination with all the supernatural wonder a young mind could conceive. But now I look beyond the spectacle of Luke’s mythic narrative to see if the hopes that first stirred that first generation of Jesus people, and inspired a nineteenth century New England cleric in writing these verses, may yet resonate with me in the time and place in which I find myself. Will I hear any angels singing on the midnight clear this year? And will their old and glorious song bolster my faith that God’s spirit will prevail in bringing peace on this earth, and goodwill between and among the men, women and children who find a way to not only sing this same song, but really mean it.
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Advent Meditation for the Eighteenth Day of Advent: Wednesday, December 17, 2025
“O Morning Star, How Fair, How Bright”
TEXT written by Philipp Nicolai (1599), trans Catherine Winkworth (1863) inspired by Psalm 45
TUNE: WIE SCHON LEUCHTET DER MORGENSTERN by Philipp Nicolai (1599), harmony by J. S. Bach (1731)
ONLINE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/i3QSwL5YRTg?si=j8pAK8l_b2iGsHnY
This is the second Advent hymn authored by Philipp Nicolai, a German Lutheran pastor whose ministry thrust him right into the center of denominational strife between Catholic and Calvinist authorities. If that wasn’t enough to challenge one’s faith, he endured a devastating seven-month plague that took the lives of more than 1300 souls, nearly half of the inhabitants of his village of Unna, Germany. His response was to write hymns seeking to bolster the faith of his congregants by turning them from their despair and anger to hope. It was as a response to this horrific challenge from those unknown forces of sickness that Pastor Nicolai wrote the words and music of this hymn, later adapted by Bach to the form we now sing it.
The text, as one might expect, is infused with an eschatological outlook about a futuristic ending to the horrors of such widespread pestilence and death. Verse 3 leaves little room to wonder about the reason for Nicolai’s hope:
“He will one day, O glorious grace, transport us to that happy place beyond all tears and sinning! Amen! Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! Crown of gladness, we are yearning for the day of your returning.”
Whenever I read a text that was composed during such a period of anguish and uncertainty, I fully expect it to express those feelings that come so easily to me in such moments. The question “why” bursts forth from my heart, and with it a torrent of sadness and defeatism. And then there is the anger, the most easily misplaced of all our emotions, yet perhaps the most honest. How could God let this happen? Why were some taken and others spared? There may be no deeper spiritual response we can muster when life, indeed the Lord of life, seems to turn on us.
“O Morning Star…” reveals none of these sentiments or deep-seated resentments toward a God who has failed to protect his children. Instead, Nicolai writes not as a vindictive or judgmental preacher but as a shepherd, seeking nothing more than to provide comfort and instill hope among his flock. His are words I doubtless could not utter, but surely would need to hear and take to heart:
“Thou are holy, fair and glorious, all victorious, rich in blessing, rule and mighty o’er all possessing.
“Fill me with joy and strength to be thy member, ever joined to thee in love that cannot falter; toward thee longing doth possess me; turn and bless me; here in sadness eye and heart long for thy gladness!
“What joy to know, when life is past, the Lord we love is first and last, the end and the beginning!”
Bach’s musical setting further turns any sadness that could be inferred from the circumstances that so shaped Nicolai’s faith into a hymn of triumph and confidence that can be sung, not only at Advent, but in any season of the church year in which we look to God in praise and adoration.
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Advent Meditation for the Nineteenth Day of Advent: Thursday, December 18, 2025
“O Little Town of Bethlehem”
TEXT written by Phillips Brooks (1868)
TUNE: ST. LOUIS by Lewis H. Redner (1868)
ONLINE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/iM9ED6mgJfU?si=WBfUnorVVjD-RpMD
In this standard of the Christmas Carol catalogue we find that rare collaboration of a literary pastor, Phillips Brooks, asking his church organist to compose a melody to fit a poem he had just composed. The inspiration for the verse came from Brooks’ 1865 trip to the Holy Land where he rode from Jerusalem to Bethlehem on horseback. Fittingly this all took place on Christmas Eve, with Brooks visiting traditional nativity sites and sharing in evening worship at the traditional site of Jesus birth. Upon his return he opened his heart in the poem for which he has earned lasting appreciation.
Given the collaborative manner in which this hymn was created, it is no surprise that its text and music fit so seamlessly and flow so soothingly. Brooks, who served lengthy pastorates in both Philadelphia and Boston, was well known and revered for his command of the English language which was on display in the pulpit, securing for himself large and faithful followings in both of the urban Episcopal churches in which he served.
This is a hymn that can be sung both before and during the Christmas season. The first verse is an abbreviated travel-log telling of his memorable night visiting Bethlehem and its bucolic environs. A small village a few miles from Jerusalem, Bethlehem’s streets would have been difficult to navigate at night in this pre-electrical era. And the skies above would have presented him with a myriad of heavenly lights that few of us today have ever seen nor can imagine. Though he was awestruck by this dazzling astral canopy, he nonetheless contrasted it with the everlasting light which, for Brooks, did not emanate from the star of magi preoccupation. Rather that which he saw so clearly over Bethlehem was none other than the light of Christ that the Fourth Gospel asserts “still shines in the darkness.”
The second and third verses offer the poet a chance to do some theologizing on the import of Jesus’ birth. For it is nothing less than a cosmic event, its holiness proclaimed by the stars in the heavens confirming God’s kingly gesture of peace to all on earth. And then, perhaps recalling the quiet he sensed while walking the streets of Bethlehem, its citizens in slumber within their cramped stone dwellings, the silence of this night of nights struck him as revelatory. “No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.” How else should we understand God’s appearing into this world in the person of an infant named Jesus. There were no cataclysmic upheavals or triumphant fanfares. Nothing but a quiet, ordinary, and humble entrance, recognized only in those human hearts willing to see in him the Divine.
For me the last verse speaks like a prayer that Rev. Books may have intended as both a closing benediction and heart-felt petition. In the spirit of Emmanuel he appeals to Christ to be with us, exorcising our sinfulness, while entering us through our own rebirth. Finally, in what best qualifies this as a song for Advent, the writer repeats those words that so define this season of spiritual expectancy: “O Come to us, abide in us, our Lord Emmanuel.”
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Advent Meditation for the Twentieth Day of Advent: Friday, December 19 2025
“Once in David’s Royal City”
TEXT written by Cecil Frances Alexander (1848) based on Luke 2:7
TUNE: IRBY, written by Henry J. Gauntlett (1849)
ONLINE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/D0TSUcPFus0?si=bahqXO3G2xxQ8lRq
It is often said that Christmas is for children. Certainly the stories of angels and shepherds, an infant savior lovingly cared for by a mother and father dealing with the extremities of an arduous journey from their home, and the presence of docile livestock lending their calming company—all of these add to the “ambiance” of the manger that speaks to the innocent and trusting world in which young children look for comfort and security. My take on Advent hymns, however, often reveals a grim and challenging world torn by strife, war, and grief. Even the musical voice that composers give to these poetic texts that we lift up in this season of waiting can often sound notes and chords that suggest gloom and sadness. Hardly the stuff for children to appreciate or understand.
Perhaps with that in mind the English poet Cecil Frances Alexander was inspired to create stories in verse that would speak to the trusting and innocent faith of children. Wife of an Anglican rector in Dickensonian England she applied her gifts as an educator to composing songs specifically with a younger audience in mind. Her Hymns for Little Children included two hymns that have become staples for Christian worshipers ever since: All Things Bright and Beautiful, and the carol that is the subject of this essay, Once in David’s Royal City.”
Alexander’s six stanzas blend a retelling of Luke’s gospel story of the nativity with a theological interpretation of the meaning of Christ’s birth that was meant to help cultivate in children a simple yet rather profound sense of what the incarnation means for Christian believers. Her explanations in verse combine elements of what we would call “high christology” as expressed in this phrase, “He came down to earth from heaven who is God and Lord of all.” But her greatest emphasis seems to be on lifting Jesus up as the exemplar by which youngsters should live and model their own lives, he being one with them in his humanity: “Jesus is our childhood’s pattern; day by day, like us he grew; he was little, weak and helpless, tears and smiles like us he knew.” In another verse—one not often found in modern hymnals—we hear the composer sharing her traditional expectation of conduct based on the example of the Christ child: “Christian children all must be, mild, obedient, good as He.”
Some eschatological themes are woven into the verses of this hymn, notably in her assuring words about death and the future, both of which children may think about more than we who are older sometimes realize. This comforting stanza appears as the final verse in many versions of the hymn that churches sing today:
“And our eyes at last shall see him, through his own redeeming love; for that child so dear and gentle is our Lord in heaven above; and he leads his children on to the place where he is gone.
The author’s concluding verse, which is only rarely printed in contemporary hymnals, adds an even more descriptive image of our heavenly destiny, reminiscent of the visionary testimony from Daniel and Revelation:
”Not in that poor lowly stable, with the oxen standing by,
We shall see him: but in heaven, set at God's right hand on high,
Where like stars his children crowned, all in white shall wait around.”
For me, much of the charm of this hymn lies in its pairing with the tune, IRBY, written by Henry J. Gauntlett, a well known London organist and contemporary of the hymn’s author, who composed this music specifically for her verses. Sung in procession on Christmas Eve, ideally introduced by a child playing its melodic line on the recorder, it always transports me to a spiritual innocence and optimism that my soul desperately welcomes in the face of the calamities and anxieties of this modern age. If, as Jesus asserts, we must become again as little children to enter the Kingdom of God, then this hymn may provide us with a spiritual doorway through which we might find our way home.
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Advent Meditation for the Twenty-first Day of Advent: Saturday, December 20 2025
“There’s a Song in the Air”
TEXT written by Josiah G. Holland (1874)
TUNE: CHRISTMAS SONG by Karl P. Harrington (1904)
ONLINE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/3FuXnYarhb0?si=675EKBcumQA3L5PL
Hymns represent a very special, sometimes accidental, union of words and sounds. Usually the words come first, with music composed to fit the meter of the verse. Today’s Advent hymn seems more of a chicken or egg reversal in that process. The tune bears the name, CHRISTMAS SONG, and was composed by musician Karl Harrington as he worked at gathering hymns for a new Methodist Hymnal in the early days of the Twentieth Century. While immersed in that effort he read through volumes of Christmas poems before coming upon one written by novelist Josiah Holland, founder of Scribner’s Magazine. As he read each verse, a tune began running through in his artist’s mind, and in short order notes appeared on a blank musical staff, giving birth to the song which many Christians welcome singing at Christmas.
No one would mistake this music for Bach nor confuse it with any of the great hymns penned by Wesley or Watts. Yet it has a way of making congregations feel good in the simplicity of its melody and the lullaby feeling that its’ 3/4 time meter conveys. Singing it can almost make one feel as if rocking a cradle in which an infant slumbers, or make one imagine the gentle back and forth of a rocking chair in which a parent sings a child to sleep. I suspect some of the enduring appeal of this hymn lies in the comfort and calm that its non-verbal sonic message conveys to both listener and singer.
Textually this song draws on the story, as do so many of our hymns and carols, found in Luke’s nativity narrative. Mr. Holland seems to have developed his rather literal use of Luke around the illuminating star which many folks imagine literarily hovering in suspension over Bethlehem town. But to the author this was neither an astronomical anomaly nor a supernatural phenomenon upon which we should fix our gaze. It was, instead, the visual representation of God so often symbolized in the scriptures, casting its light upon the place where “the Lord of the earth,” chose to be revealed. The text also contrasts several very related sounds—or songs—that we may not always hear or join into one choral portrait: “a mother’s deep prayer, “ “a baby’s low cry,” both standing out while, off-stage, we hear the accompanying angelic refrain “while the beautiful sing.”
As is true for most of us when reading a poem or singing a song, our eyes tend to rivet on one or words more phrases that move us because they cut deeply into our hearts. For me that personal and revelatory insight comes in the third stanza:
“In the light of that star lie the ages imperiled, and that song from afar has swept over the world.”
Living as we do in this year bearing the number 2025, which once was widely regarded as Anno Domini, “ in the year of the Lord,” one can understand why Mr. Holland in 1874 could proclaim that the incarnation of God in the infant Jesus was a song that had been fulfilled in time. Or as he likely understood, that “song from afar” confirmed what Jesus commanded his disciples in Mark’s 16: 15 when he told them to “go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation.