Reconnecting with the Good News

Hymn For Christmas-Day
(Hark! The Herald Angels Sing)

Hark how all the welkin rings!
Glory to the King of kings,
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say:
Christ the Lord is born to Day.

Christ by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!
Hail the incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus! Our Immanuel here!

Hail the heavenly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore,
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp Thy image in its place;
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee the life, the inner Man;
O! to all Thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.

---

• This song is the retelling of the

and grand

Reveal Answer

of God’s effort and plan to recreate, reform, and reconcile His creation.
• “Show me your church’s songs and I’ll show you their

Reveal Answer

.” – Gordon Fee
• “Methodism was born in

Reveal Answer

, and Charles Wesley was its chief songwriter.”

¹⁵ No one can see God, but Jesus Christ is exactly like him. He ranks higher than everything that has been made. ¹⁶ Through his power all things were made—things in heaven and on earth, things seen and unseen, all powers, authorities, lords, and rulers. All things were made through Christ and for Christ. ¹⁷ He was there before anything was made, and all things continue because of him. ¹⁸ He is the head of the body, which is the church. Everything comes from him. He is the first one who was raised from the dead. So in all things Jesus has first place. ¹⁹ God was pleased for all of himself to live in Christ. ²⁰ And through Christ, God has brought all things back to himself again—things on earth and things in heaven. God made peace through the blood of Christ’s death on the cross.

²¹ At one time you were separated from God. You were his enemies in your minds, and the evil things you did were against God. ²² But now God has made you his friends again. He did this through Christ’s death in the body so that he might bring you into God’s presence as people who are holy, with no wrong, and with nothing of which God can judge you guilty. —Colossians 1:15-22 (NCV)

• The Good News that we see in Colossians 1, and what this old hymn tries to do, is to awe in not only what God has done in and through Christ, but to also awe in the

that we now have to Him.

“The unveiling of God’s mystery means that Christ is in us just like he might be in any other believer providing for us the same glorious hope. There are no second-class subjects in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.” —Dennis Edwards

• “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15