JOY to the WORLD! the Forgotten Meaning of Christmas

JOY TO THE WORLD! The Forgotten Meaning of Christmas

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 1 8/2/13 12:27 PM 2013 First Printing Joy to the World! The Forgotten Meaning of Christmas Copyright © 2013 by Paraclete Press, Inc. ISBN: 978-1-61261-411-3 Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptural references are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scriptures marked kjv are taken from the authorized King James Version of the Bible. The Paraclete Press name and logo (dove on cross) is a registered trademark of Paraclete Press, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748. Joy to the world! : the forgotten meaning of Christmas / by Isaac Watts and Paraclete Press. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61261-411-3 (hard cover-jacket : alk. paper) 1. Christmas poetry, English. 2. Hymns, English. I. Title. PR3763.W2A72 2013 821’.5—dc23 201302108 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduce, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Paraclete Press Brewster, Massachusetts www.paracletepress.com Paraclete Press Printed in the United States of America BREWSTER, MASSACHUSETTS

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 2 8/2/13 12:27 PM Isaac Watts and Paraclete Press JOY TO THE WORLD! The Forgotten Meaning of Christmas

Paraclete Press BREWSTER, MASSACHUSETTS

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 1 8/2/13 12:27 PM Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 2 8/2/13 12:27 PM THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO

everyone who sings in church, joins a choir,

or visits their neighbors singing carols at Christmas,

thereby keeping the great hymns alive.

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 3 8/2/13 12:27 PM  VERSE  1 Joy to the world! The Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

 VERSE  2 Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 4 8/2/13 12:27 PM  VERSE  3 No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse is found.

 VERSE  4 He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of his righteousness, And wonders of his love, And wonders of his love, And wonders, wonders, of his love.

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 5 8/2/13 12:27 PM Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 6 8/2/13 12:27 PM JOY TO THE WORLD!

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 7 8/2/13 12:27 PM Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 8 8/2/13 12:27 PM c o n t e n t s

introduction The Forgotten Meaning of Christmas 13 1 Let Earth Receive Her King 29 2 Let Men Their Songs Employ 33 3 No More Let Sins and Sorrows Grow 37 4 He Rules the World with Truth and Grace 41 5 For the Twelve Days of Christmas reflections o n C h r i s t t h e K i n g f r o m t h e w r i t i n g s of I s a a c W a t t s 45

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 9 8/2/13 12:27 PM a p p e n d i x More Christmas Hymns about the Second Coming 97

n o t e s

105

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 10 8/2/13 12:27 PM Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 11 8/2/13 12:27 PM Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 12 8/2/13 12:27 PM introduction

The Forgotten Meaning of Christmas

he lyrics to “Joy to the World” were written in 1719 by the English, T Nonconformist hymn writer Isaac Watts (1674–1748). A poet since childhood, Watts grew up to become a pastor and hymn writer. He wrote some 750 hymns and was often called, even during his own lifetime, the Father of English Hymnody.

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 13 8/2/13 12:27 PM Many of Watts’s hymns are among the most familiar in the world. “From All That Dwell Below the Skies,” “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” for instance, are found in hundreds of hymnbooks, across many Christian denominations, and sung regularly by millions in praise of God. Watts’s work was celebrated during his lifetime in England, as well as in America. Benjamin Franklin was among his earliest admirers; in fact, he was the first publisher of Watts’s songs in the young American colonies in 1729. “Joy to the World” was later put to music in 1839 by an American musician named Lowell Mason. Today, it is the most popular Christmas hymn in the world. But there’s more to the story of this great hymn.

It is such a beautiful song.

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 14 8/2/13 12:27 PM Let earth receive her King!

Repeat the sounding joy!

No more let sins and sorrows grow!

He rules the world with truth and grace . . .

. . . And wonders, wonders, of his love!

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 15 8/2/13 12:27 PM Very few people know that Isaac Watts did not write “Joy to the World” to be a Christmas hymn. It was written simply to imitate one of the psalms of David: Psalm 98. Watts was working on a larger project to “retranslate” the Psalter into modern use, and he intended “Joy to the World” to inspire people to sing the words of the ancient Psalm in everyday English. The text of the hymn was first published in 1719 in England in a volume titled The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Applied to the Christian State and Worship. A writer of multiple thick volumes of sermons, theological and philosophical treatises, addresses, songs, and other translations, Isaac Watts viewed The Psalms of David as the major work of his life: - reinterpreting the emotion, passion, and ideas of the Hebrew psalmists, infusing them with Christian theology. He was sometimes criticized for presuming to “rewrite” a part of the Bible. How can one

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 16 8/2/13 12:27 PM improve upon the already powerful language of emotion and spiritual yearning present in the Psalms? But Reverend Watts said that it was precisely because of the power in those ancient words that they ought to be rendered anew for each age—in language that will encourage people to praise God.

Praise abounds in “Joy to the World.” How blessed our lives might be if we praised God with words—and songs—like this every moment of every day.

HEAVEN AND NATURE SING

- REPEAT THE SOUNDING JOY

HIS BLESSINGS FLOW

GLORIES OF HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 17 8/2/13 12:27 PM Watts believed that the Psalter ought to be translated differently for singing than for reading. He explained:

The design of these two duties is very different: By reading we learn what God speaks to us in his word; but when we sing, especially unto God, our chief design is, or should be, to speak our own hearts and our words to God. . . . We breathe out our souls towards him, and make our addresses of praise and acknowledgment to him.

Perhaps this means, don’t just read (or study) this book; use it to sing. Watts went on, most passionately:

It is not always necessary that our songs should be direct addresses to God; some of them may be mere meditations of the

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 18 8/2/13 12:27 PM history of divine providences, or the experiences of former saints; but even then if those providences or experiences cannot be assumed by us as parallel to our own, nor spoken in our own names, yet still there ought to be some turns of expression that may make it look at least like our own present meditation, and that may represent it as a history which we ourselves are at that time recollecting. 1

In other words, make the words of the hymn your own.

Now, pause for a moment and read the words of David’s Psalm 98 in the King James Version of the Bible that Isaac Watts knew and loved:

O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and

- his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 19 8/2/13 12:27 PM The LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm. With trumpets and sound of cornet make a

joyful noise before the LORD, the King.

Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the - world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills

be joyful together before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 20 8/2/13 12:27 PM Those were the words of God that inspired “Joy to the World.”

When we sing Watts’s new version of the Psalm, Christ’s presence is assumed in those phrases. The Lord King, who is making known his righteousness, is not just God the Father, but God the Son. “Joy to the World” is about Christ the King—even though the ancient psalmist, of course, lived centuries before Christ. How do we reconcile this? There are some who object to inserting Christian imagery (language of the New Testament) into the Hebrew Psalms (the Old Testament). But on this point, too, Watts was adamant. These were the principles he followed:

[The Psalms] ought to be translated in such a manner as we have reason to

Joy to thre World FORMATindd.indd 21 8/2/13 12:27 PM believe David would have composed them if he had lived in our day. . . . Were [David] now to transcribe them, he would make them speak the present circumstances of the church, and that in the language of the New Testament. He would see frequent occasion to insert the cross of Christ in his song, and often underline the confessions of his sins with the blood of the Lamb. He would often describe the glories and the triumphs of our blessed Lord in long and flowing verse, even as St. Paul, when he mentions the name and honors of Christ, can hardly part his lips from them again.2

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