The Christmas Carols: Past, Present, & Future HopeSample

Day 21

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Read: Luke 2:14; Isaiah 9:1-7

Some songs are as powerful today as they were when they were written hundreds of years ago. Great music transports us to a place beyond time, where lyrics and melodies can speak to many generations at once. However, because of music’s timeless quality, we may forget that songs are written inside of time. The setting and context into which a hymn is composed often provides insight into the meaning of the lyrics.

“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” was written in 1849 by a pastor from Massachusetts, Edmund Sears, as he reflected on the tensions rising around him. The United States was just twelve years from the Civil War, and trouble was already brewing. Out of this context, Sears drew comfort from the words the angels spoke to the shepherds on the night of Jesus birth, declaring “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests," (Luke 2:14). In the dark of night, a new light shone that would provide peace for the people on the earth. This song begins 2,000 years ago with the angels, “bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold.” It continues to talk about the contemporary experience of mankind who are “beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low.” The song climaxes with a look at the future where “the whole world sends back the song which now the angels sing.” In other words, the promise of the angels of peace on earth will ultimately be fulfilled when Christ returns.

Think of all the wars that have been fought all over the world since the time of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem. The earth has hardly been a peaceful place for the last two millennia. However, the promise of the angels will ultimately be fulfilled. Upon Christ’s second coming, peace will fill the earth for those who trust in Him. We look forward to that day . . . and we sing. May the latest conflicts in Israel and Ukraine not obscure the reality that the Prince of Peace will one day reign, and earthly armies will forever rest. Sing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” as a cry for peace this year.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold;
"Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From Heav’n’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heav’nly music floats,
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hov’ring wing,
And ever o’er its Babel sounds,
The blessed angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife,
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled,
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not,
The love-song which they bring.
Oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow.
Look now! for glad and golden hours,
Come swiftly on the wing.
Oh, rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

For lo! the days are hast’ning on,
By prophet seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years,
Shall come the time foretold,
When Christ shall come and all shall own,
The Prince of Peace, their King.
And saints shall meet Him in the air,
And with the angels sing.