Joy To the World

 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 heaven, and nature sing.

 This is the first verse of a well-known Christmas hymn, Joy To the World.  The song is one of the most published hymns in the modern day, and is well-known by multitudes.  Written in the early 1700’s by Isaac Watts, the song is thought to be taken from Psalm 98 and Genesis chapter 3.

There have been several tunes matched with the lyrics; however, the modern tune is one written by Lowell Mason in the mid 1800’s, and is widely thought to be patterned at least in part by excerpts from Handel’s Messiah.  The first four notes in the present tune are identical to the notes in the movement “Glory to God” in The Messiah.  The key, D major, is also the same.  Other parts of the tune are sometimes attributed to various other parts of the oratorio.  Mason himself gave credit to Handel for parts of the modern tune.

Many have thought that rather than a song to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the song is instead a celebration of the second coming of Christ as the victorious king.  Many Christians can appreciate the lyrics of the song as applying to either the birth of Christ or his second coming.  Watts himself seems to attribute the lyrics to Psalm 98, which he describes as follows:  Psalms 96-98 refer to "Christ's Incarnation, his setting up his Gospel-Kingdom to judge or rule the Gentiles, and the Judgment and Destruction of the Heathen Idols"

Regardless of your own interpretation of the words, the song is one that raises the spirit and provides hope during a season of the year when for many, life is anything but pleasant and joyful.  It promises to be a part of the holiday season repertoire for many decades to come.

There are four verses all together in the song.  I’ll close with the reciting of the other three.

 Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns;  Let men their songs employ;  While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains  Repeat the sounding joy,  Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

 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, far as, the curse is found.

 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, wonders, of His love.