{"id":300,"date":"2020-12-09T10:59:39","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T15:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=300"},"modified":"2020-12-09T10:59:39","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T15:59:39","slug":"it-came-upon-the-midnight-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/09\/it-came-upon-the-midnight-clear\/","title":{"rendered":"It Came Upon the Midnight Clear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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People from all walks of life and every kind of circumstance end up writing Christmas carols.

Even burned-out preachers.

In 1849, a Massachusetts pastor named Edmund Sears suffered an emotional breakdown.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t just bone-weary from laboring for seven years to lead a pair of Unitarian congregations.\u00a0 His heart was heavy because of the social upheaval that had turned Europe upside-down \u2013 1848 being known as the Year of Revolutions \u2013 and the blood that had been shed in America\u2019s recently concluded war with Mexico.

When Sears surveyed the global landscape, he saw a \u201cweary world\u201d with \u201csad and lowly plains.\u201d

As he pondered the hopeful expectations associated with Christmas, his melancholy led him to conclude that human history since the time of Jesus had essentially been \u201ctwo thousand years of wrong.\u201d These are not the sorts of impulses that might lead one to write Rockin\u2019 Around the Christmas Tree<\/em>.

But it was the perfect frame of mind to write It Came Upon the Midnight Clear<\/em>.\u00a0

Here we need to pause to address the battle of the indefinite articles.\u00a0 Some people sing, \u201cIt came upon a<\/u><\/em> midnight clear,\u201d while others opt for \u201cthe<\/u><\/em> midnight clear.\u201d\u00a0 Which is correct?\u00a0 Let\u2019s let Sears, who wrote the carol\u2019s lyrics, have the final word:

It came upon the midnight clear,\u00a0that glorious song of old
From angels bending near the earth, to touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men, from heaven\u2019s all-gracious King.\u201d
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 heavenly music floats o\u2019er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains, they bend on hovering 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;
O 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.
O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!<\/em>

Check out this\u00a0gentle version<\/a>\u00a0by Meredith Andrews.\u00a0 Notice that she went with \u201ca\u201d instead of \u201cthe.\u201d\u00a0 Somewhere right now Edmund Sears is no doubt rolling his eyes.\u00a0 \u00a0

Even while battling the blues, Sears couldn\u2019t resist writing a fifth verse \u2013 a bold statement of God\u2019s promise that one day things will be different:

For lo!, the days are hastening on, by prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.<\/em>

David Peterson, who for years was pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Spokane, Washington, remembers the time his little daughter came into his study while he was working feverishly.\u00a0 \u201cDaddy,\u201d she said, \u201ccan we play?\u201d\u00a0

He answered, \u201cI\u2019m awfully sorry, sweetheart, but I\u2019m right in the middle of finishing a sermon.\u00a0 How about in one hour?\u00a0 We can play then.\u201d

\u201cOK, Daddy,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd as soon as you\u2019re done, I\u2019m going to give you a great big hug.\u201d\u00a0 Peterson said, \u201cNow, that will be wonderful.\u201d\u00a0

His daughter walked away but got only as far as the door, at which point she did an abrupt U-turn, ran back towards him and squeezed him with all of her might.\u00a0 \u201cDaddy,\u201d she said, \u201cI just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to.\u201d

Every now and then \u2013 through heartfelt hugs, encouraging words, courageous forgiveness, and expressions of grace \u2013 God gives us a taste of what we have to look forward to.

Today we\u2019re one day closer to the time when the whole world will give back the song which now the angels sing.
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People from all walks of life and every kind of circumstance end up writing Christmas carols. Even burned-out preachers. In 1849, a Massachusetts pastor named Edmund Sears suffered an emotional breakdown.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t just bone-weary from laboring for seven years to lead a pair of Unitarian congregations.\u00a0 His heart was heavy because of the social upheaval that had turned Europe… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,18],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas-carols","tag-hope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}