‘Hail the heaven-born 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.
-----Hark! the herald angels sing
-----Glory to the new-born King.’
As you open this second Advent present, it will be Thursday, 2nd of December. Yesterday was World AIDS Day, and I feel it is still an appropriate topic, since the whole month is dedicated to AIDS awareness. How to tie this in to Christmas carols? The answer came from one song in particular – the last one that I would have considered to contain a lesson for such a subject.
Hark the Herald is one of the most bashy tunes you might come across in a carol service… well, that and O Come All Ye Faithful… but, as the first verse shows, the lyrics do concern a fanfare-like exultation of the greatness of the day. ‘Joyful all ye nations, rise, / Join the triumph of the skies;’ – it’s dramatic and ecstatic stuff.
Amidst all the pomp of Mendelssohn’s music, and even a screechy descant, the third verse (relayed above) tells us why we should be so happy about Christ’s coming. I find that’s something we often forget; it’s easy to get hyped-up about how great and important the Nativity is. But why?
Two of the most beautiful and meaningful lines occur in this verse. Charles Wesley writes that Jesus is ‘risen with healing in his wings’. The word ‘risen’ seems to go unchecked; read the line again and stress it. Where on earth did that come from? The carol had made no reference to Easter or the Resurrection until that passing word which doesn’t even get two syllables when sung! Innocuously, this line is the crux of the third verse. Wesley moves on to emphasise the double-nature of Christmas itself: ‘Born that man no more may die’. These words send a shiver up my spine. The whole point of the Nativity is the Resurrection. The point of Jesus’ birth is Jesus’ death. This child is our salvation.
What message of hope can we take from this, in the face of health crises, such as the AIDS pandemic? I would love to say that all that was needed was for us to pray for Jesus’ very real flesh-and-bone, white feathered, swan-like wings to come down and envelop us, but I don’t believe in that any more than I believe in Father Christmas coming down the chimney. We don’t need to pray for Jesus’ coming down, but rather his rising up. Jesus offers us a better life both now and after death. This is the answer to the why? question. Christmas is important because of Easter. Our hope against the darkness of the age is this infant who was born to die. Thanks be to God.
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