- The weeks leading up to Christmas, known in the Church as Advent, has traditionally been a time of fasting and repentance, an opportunity to take seriously the sin – the Goliaths – of our personal and corporate lives.
Charles Wesley was one great hymn-writer. In the 18th century he composed more than 9,000 hymns and sacred poems. According to biographer John Tyson, he basically averaged a hymn a day for twenty-five years of his adult life. More than 400 of those compositions still appear in hymnals today.
The hymn included in most modern hymnbooks is “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” Henry Ward Beecher once remarked, “I would rather have written … ‘Jesus, Lover of My Soul’ than have the fame of all the kings that ever sat on the earth.”
At Easter, congregations still sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” which, based on its rate of inclusion in hymnbooks worldwide, is ranked Wesley’s fifth most popular hymn. But fourth on that same list is the hugely popular (especially at this time of year) “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” My favorite lines:
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.
A handful of those words are lifted right out of the book of Malachi, who prophesied that “for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” (Malachi 4:2)
In that last chapter of Malachi, the God’s final words before 400 years of seeming silence and the arrival of Jesus, the prophet looks forward: “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze…”
A day is coming when Jesus will burn away everything that is not of Him. And instead of waiting for some future day, let Him start burning away those things…now.
Back to Charles Wesley. One of his 9,000 poems dealt with David and Goliath. You know the story: the nine-foot tall Philistine is mocking the Israelites and challenging them to a mano-a-mano contest between the warring camps. No Israelite is crazy enough to take up that offer. But along comes the boy David, who somehow convinces King Saul he is just the guy for the job; Goliath is felled by a rock from a slingshot in the middle of his forehead.
Enter Wesley:
Tallest of the earth-born race,
They tremble at his power,
Flee before the monster’s face,
And own him conqueror. –
Who this mighty champion is?
Nature answers from within;
He is my own wickedness,
My own besetting sin.
Whoa! Goliath is…me? My own sin? The giant that must be felled? As David did it with Goliath of Gath, so the Son of David wants to put a rock in the forehead of your sin, and mine.
The weeks leading up to Christmas, known in the Church as Advent, has traditionally been a time of fasting and repentance, an opportunity to take seriously the sin – the Goliaths – of our personal and corporate lives.
What better way to prepare for the celebration of Christ –
“Burn away, Sun of Righteousness, all that is not You.
Destroy, oh Son of David, the power of sin in my life.”
