Angels From the Realms of Glory -
Psalm 85:10-13
Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness
and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and
righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will indeed give what is good,
and our land
will yield its harvest.
Righteousness goes before him
and prepares
the way for his steps.
James Montgomery was a prolific
poet that was a contemporary of both Charles Wesley and Issac Watts. Six of Montgomery’s hymns are found in our
current United Methodist hymnal including “Angels from the Realms of
Glory.” “Angels” is, by far, the most
popular and most sung of his compositions.
The popular carol has five verses, but most hymnals omit the final verse
because it seems like a downer after the jubilation of the first four:
Sinners, wrung with true
repentance,
Doomed for guilt to endless
pains,
Justice now revokes your
sentence,
Mercy calls you; break your
chains
Come and worship, come and
worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn
King.
I find this unfortunate, because
this is the completion of the progression Montgomery shows in this wonderful
song. The Angels song (verse one) leads
to the Shepherds’ adoration (verse two), and to Sages’ gifts (verse three), and
to Saints’ praise in heaven (verse four), and finally, to the Sinners’
repentance on earth (verse five). We
sinners get to join the praise of the Angels, Shepherds, Sages, and all the
Saints in heaven because Justice (Jesus) has revoked our sentence and mercy
calls US!
Although it is not talked about too
much, repentance is one of the themes of Advent. We prepare for the Lord to come into our
lives in new ways by turning from our unhealthy patterns of behavior and
thought. We realize those behaviors and
thoughts are taking us to painful places, but we often feel like we can’t free
ourselves. God’s mercy offers us a way
to freedom. We begin to replace our
sinful patterns by focusing on making our lives an act of worship to our
newborn King.
There is a powerful principle here;
you get more of what you focus on. You
don’t stop an unhealthy pattern by constantly repeating to yourself, “don’t do
this, don’t do this.” That’s actually a
way to ensure that the habit will entrench itself even more. You change the habit by shifting the focus to
something else. Whether he intended it
or not, Montgomery portrays this shift through structure of his wonderful
poem. Every verse ends with the focus of
worship:
Come and worship, come and
worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn
King.
This is our Advent task. Come and
worship. Come and worship.
Question: How could
you make what you do today an act of worship?
Prayer: We turn from
our foolishness to worship you O God! We worship you Jesus! Be born to us once again! Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for those struggling with crippling and destructive addictions today.
Song: Angels From the
Realms of Glory
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