Song for today: "Joy To The World"...
Did you know that “Joy to the World” was not written as a Christmas carol? In its original form, it had nothing to do with Christmas. It wasn’t even written to be a song. In 1719, Isaac Watts published a book of poems in which each poem was based on a Psalm 98, 96:11–12 and Genesis 3:17–18 as a celebration of Jesus’s role as King of both his church and the whole world.
More than a century later, the second half of this poem was slightly adapted and set to music to give us what has become one of the most famous of all Christmas carols:
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 nature sing, and heaven, and heaven and nature sing. Joy to the world! The Savior reigns. Let men their songs employ while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains. Repeat the sounding joy, 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 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 of His love, and wonders, wonders of His love…
