A Thrill of Hope: O Holy Night

Twenty years in my Oklahoma church established within me a love for tradition. In particular, as each Christmas Eve approached, I’d anticipate with great joy our soloist’s offering of “O Holy Night.” Somehow when this song crescendoed its way from “the stars are brightly shining” to “fall on your knees” to the triumphant “O night divine,” chill-bumps covered me head-to-toe. Every ounce of my being rejoiced because it felt as if – NOW – Christmas had arrived.

So, when we attended our new church in Texas on Christmas Eve last year, imagine my delight when their soloist stepped onto the stage to belt out a heartfelt “O Holy Night!” I sat with tears in my eyes as he hit those memorable lines. Before he could exit the stage, one of the pastors leapt forward, saying with great exuberance, “NOW, it’s Christmas!” 

Oh, the awe!

About this time last year, I jotted down the theme for THIS Advent series, “A Thrill of Hope” –  mainly because I knew my Word of the Year for 2023 was going to be ‘hope.’ 

That, and because I had just found the coolest mug that said, “Thrill of Hope.” It all seemed too perfect.

Only, I wasn’t thinking about which song contained the phrase, “a thrill of hope.” I simply hadn’t put much thought into it. So, it would be an understatement to say I was dumbfounded to realize, weeks later, that the phrase is in my favorite Christmas hymn. It felt like a God-wink. As though He were saying, you’re on the right track.

At long last, it’s December 2023, and the most anticipated Advent series I’ve ever written is ready to be shared. And, I’ll tell you – I sense God calling all of us, through this song and His Word, to look up. To Him. With wonder and awe. 

To experience a thrill of hope.

The Night of Our Dear Savior’s Birth

O Holy night! The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
‘Til He appears and the soul felt its worth

Like so much of our Christian experience, the four weeks of Advent hold a holy tension. Within its history, its purposes, and its hopes dwell the paradox of preparation. In these weeks leading up to Christmas, we’re meant to pause in our efforts of getting ready for guests and gift-giving in order to prepare ourselves for the celebration of the holy night of our dear Savior’s birth. Included in the spiritual preparation of sacred remembering is looking back over all the years it took for God’s promise of a Savior to come to fruition. 

Juxtaposed with the past reflections, we’re also to make ready our hearts and minds and lives for the future – for Jesus’ second coming.

This holy holding-together of the already-and-not-yet has long been the call of those who worship God. In the ‘already,’ we can open ourselves to our Christmas hymn’s invitation, anchor ourselves to the moment of Christ’s birth, and sit in the wonder of the long history that led to this world-changing event.

Since sin entered the world, humanity and creation have pined for the relief God promised. Even as He delivered the curses, God spoke of a Savior – the offspring of the cursed Eve – who would come to crush the enemy (Genesis 3:15). Then, so-many-thousands-of years-ago that we don’t have actual dates, God came to Abraham, promising that through his “offspring all nations on earth will be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). 

Then, when His defiant, stiff-necked people were exiled, more than a thousand years later, God declared through His prophet, Isaiah, that a Savior – his “righteous servant” – would come as One who would be crushed for their iniquities – giving His life as an offering for their sin, seeing His offspring prosper in the will of the Lord, and making it possible for many to be counted as righteous (Isaiah 53:10-11 NLT). 

Seven hundred more years went by till Spirit-filled Peter preached to the masses, demonstrating for us how to do the work of remembering – both the how and why it came to be that on a particular holy night, God’s Son was born:

“Indeed, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’ When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”

Acts 3:24-26, emphasis mine

As we pause on this first Sunday of Advent, we give ourselves space enough to imagine all the thousands of years and all the faithful servants of God who awaited the fulfillment of God’s promise.

Only by getting still before the Lord do our hearts and minds begin to align with His. With such a melting and molding of ourselves with our Maker, we sit in the truth of what that holy night meant. And still means.

Even the night of Jesus’ birth contains the contrasts of both-and. Both sacred and earthly. Both extraordinary and common. Both loud and silent. Both divine and human. Both spectacular and understated. 

But all of it…miraculous. 

The stars shining in the heavens glow in stark contrast to the depths of darkness that sin’s hold once had on the earth. The reality of death’s hopelessness causes us to look up – not only to see the light but to seek the Light, the One who has come so our souls can feel their worth.

‘Til He Appears…Again

Since the Fall, humanity has needed a Savior who would atone for all sin, a Light who would make a way through the darkness, so Jesus came to earth and ministered among us. He died and sent the Spirit to dwell in us – the portion of the promise already fulfilled. 

In his book, Surprised by Hope, NT Wright explains, “Part of the central achievement of the incarnation, which is then celebrated in the resurrection and ascension, is that heaven and earth are now joined together with an unbreakable bond and that we too are, by rights, citizens of both together.”¹

As citizens of earth and heaven, we live in the ‘already.’ Yet, we still cling to the hope of a promise not fully realized. So, Christ’s second coming is the ‘not yet.’ We await and prepare for the day when He resurrects our dead and dying bodies so that we can live with Him in the New Heaven and New Earth. In this eternal glory we will know no pain, no sadness, no envy, no fear, no darkness. 

This is our ultimate hope as believers.

In the current state of all that’s happening in the Holy Land, we’ve seen an escalation of what can be called “apocalyptic anxiety.”² We’ve known for our whole lives that the labor pains of the ‘end days’ have begun (Matthew 24:8). We’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, and talked amongst ourselves, tempted to let fear carry us along. 

But when biblical writers, like Peter, say things like, “the end of all things is near” (1 Peter 4:7), they are not trying to incite fear. They’re not even judging the world. They’re pointing us toward hope – “eschatological hope.”² 

What Jesus did by coming to earth, living as one of us and dying the death we deserved, was to usher in the “end of the beginning” – where the curse of sin and death was broken.² The mission of incarnation was a success!³ Then, in His resurrection and ascension, Jesus initiated “the beginning of the end.”² 

Here’s another way to say it – on a holy night long ago, the long-anticipated Hope of the Ages finally arrived. The Savior of the world came crying in the cold night in order to become the end of the curse and the beginning of a new and living hope. 

Now we await the grand finale – the day Hope rides in on a white horse and vanquishes all evil, including its allies, like fear and despair (Revelation 19:11). And, the best news is that while we wait, Faithful and True walks with us. He works among us. He welcomes everyone who seeks Him into His family, into His love.

So, as we prepare to move into our day, let’s allow the holiness of that One Night to wash over us, the absolute truth of God as Promise Keeper to hold us, the power of Jesus’ victory over the grave to strengthen us, and the hope of what’s to come – tomorrow and everyday – to carry us forward in faith. 

Let’s allow the wonder and majesty of what this holy night meant and still means to pour in us so that the thrill of hope will both shake us awake and root us in Christ.

Father God, we stand in awe of You and the way You set about saving the world and saving us. We marvel at the covenants you established thousands of years ago – plans that always included Jesus, that always included this moment and us. We bow before the manger, the cross, your throne. We humble ourselves, giving away our bodies and souls as living sacrifices to You – because we know that we know that we know, You are Faithful and True. Lord Jesus, thank You for leaving your power and authority to come to earth as baby, as a man of lowly means so that You could show us how to live for God. When we think of all that changed in the world because of your entrance into it, we lose our breath. Without You, darkness would reign everyday with no light. Without You, sin would spread like contagion, causing us to think only evil all the time, as in the days of Noah. Without You, death would have the final say, leaving us with no hope for a future with loved ones or with You.⁴ Thank You. Holy Spirit, we are waking up to the reality of your presence and power within us. We confess how often we live our lives thinking we can do it all on our own, all by our strength, all by our will. But as we’ve sat in this holy remembering of what the world was like before Christ’s holy night, we see anew the immeasurable gift that You are to us. We welcome You into our lives. We seek to know more of You. We desire to live more fully with You at the driver’s wheel, leading us into a reality of supernatural power, such as we cannot imagine – but hope for. Move in us in such a way that our spirits experience the thrill of hope that Jesus came to earth to give us. In holy His name we pray, amen.
(inspired by Genesis 22:18; Isaiah 53; Romans 12:1; Revelation 19:11; Philippians 2:7; John 8:12; Romans 6:10; Genesis 6:5; Acts 2:24; Revelation 1:18; Acts 1:8, 2:38; Ephesians 3:16; Romans 15:13)

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• 1 – NT Wright’s book Surprised by Hope^ is a deep dive into resurrection theology. The audio format is on sale at the time of this writing!!
• 2 – JD Walt in The Daily Text, 3/28/22 – “Peter did not write these words, The end of all things is near, out of some kind of apocalyptic anxiety that the world was going to hell in a hand basket. No, he wrote them out of the deepest well of hope this side of heaven because it was actually anchored in heaven: eschatological hope.”
• 3 – NT Wright, Instagram, 11/28/22 – “Jesus is the totality of our hope because he defeated the final weapon of darkness and evil. This was the mission for which God became incarnate, and the reason we celebrate Hope during Advent.”
• 4 – If you’re like me, maybe it has confused you to read Scriptures that say Jesus defeated death yet we still die? I ran across a great article that explains what it means that Christ conquered death, differentiating Christ’s death and resurrection from others and showing us how Jesus’ death and resurrection take the sting out of all our deaths.
• * There’s an interesting history behind “O Holy Night.” Rather than trying to share it all here, I think I’ll share a little each week. Here’s what is generally thought to be true about the lyrics and music origins: 
  • Lyrics – In 1843, the little town of Roquemaure, France had recently fixed up the 17th-century organ in the parish church, and M. l’abbé Petitjean requested, for a Christmas debut, a song from the local poet, lawyer, and wine merchant Placide Cappeau. 
  • Music – At the time there was residing in the town a soprano, Mme. Émily Laurey, a friend of the renowned composer Adolphe Adam, who agreed to write music expressly for her to perform this new canticle of Christmas, and she did, in the church of St. Jean-Baptiste et Jean l’Évangeliste at the Christmas midnight mass 1847.
• * You may have noticed that I italicized the word offspring in the verses I listed as I traced a quick history of God’s promises given and fulfilled in Christ. I had a word-nerd moment as I saw the same word used again and again. The word, zera, in Greek can mean ‘offspring’ and ‘seed.’ Watch how it progresses even into the New Testament:
  • Genesis 3:15 – God curses the serpent saying that He’d put enmity between serpent’s ‘seed’ and the woman’s ‘seed.’
  • Then in Galatians 3:16, Paul goes to this very part of the curse to drive home the point as He makes the case for Christ as the Messiah, “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.”
  • In Genesis 22:18, God uses the same language, saying that “in your seed, all nations will be blessed.”
  • Then in Isaiah 53:10, God speaks through the prophet about Messiah, talking about His seed (the Suffering Servant, Jesus) as being able to see His own offspring – His seed. The same word, zera, is used again but this time with more of a collective moral meaning – to describe those who follow Jesus.
  • So, when Peter quotes the covenant God made with Abraham (Genesis 22:18), he uses the Greek word for ‘offspring’ or ‘seed,’ sperma, bringing the promise of Messiah full circle. Friends, WE ARE THE SEED promised to Abraham. We are the offspring of Christ!
  • (Did you also notice the way the word ‘crushed’ was used in so many of these passages? Y’all, I cannot describe how it thrills me when I see God’s Word woven with such intention and beauty!)
• Our new Advent playlist, A Thrill of Hope, has a few versions of “O Holy Night” scattered in it. As I researched for this series, I had fun looking up the history of the hymn and listening to various versions of it. Here’s one you can listen to that’s the original French version, called “Minuit, Chrétiens” meaning “Midnight, Christians.” On our playlist, you’ll hear songs you recognize and some I’m betting you won’t. but they all sing of the hope of Christ — and lead us in holy worship!
• Did you receive our first ever The Abiding Life Newsletter? If not, you can subscribe here. The December edition will hit inboxes this week!! If you have any questions, email me. I’m so excited for this new way of engaging with you. XOXO
• On Wednesdays I’ve begun posting 5-7 minute teaching videos on my Facebook Author Page and Instagram (@shelleylinnjohnson).

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is what aids us in our desire to become more Christlike.

• Throughout the fall, we leaned into the rhythm of stillness, carving out time each day to be with the Lord even if it looked different each day. Rather than introduce a new rhythm in this busy season, I suggest we continue in our practice of pausing, of breathing in God’s grace and exhaling our stress, of receiving His hope and we release our despair.
  • Sometimes it helps to have words to say, so I offer JD Walt’s prayer of consecration to you. It’s become a regular rhythm in my life:
    
    Jesus, I belong to You.
    I lift my heart to You.
    I set my mind on You.
    I fix my eyes on You.
    I offer my body to You as a living sacrifice.
    Jesus, we belong to You.
    We’re praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
• Finally, as a community, let us not neglect sharing God’s hope with others! Share your God-stories with people around you. Share this site. Share God’s Word. Shine His light of His hope into the world!

Featured Photo by Photo by Nathan Jennings on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” photo by Yana Gorbunova on Unsplash.
^denotes an affiliate link, with which I may earn a bit — every little bit helps to keep this ministry going! So, thanks!