LUKE 2:13
One of the things that makes Christmas such a memorable time of the year is the music. We sing the same, or almost the same songs year after year, they get stuck in our heads and we can often recite the words without thinking about what they mean.
Christmas carols, as we know them now, were abolished by the English Puritan parliament in 1627 because they were a part of a “worldly festival,” which they considered the celebration of Christmas to be. As a result, there was a scarcity of Christmas hymns and carols in the 17th and early 18th centuries. “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” by Charles Wesley was one of the few written during this period and it became a classic among Christmas songs.
Like many of Charles Wesley’s more than 6,500 hymns, this text clearly presents biblical doctrine in poetic language.
When Charles Wesley wrote this hymn in 1739, he had no idea it would become famous. He first named it “Hark, how all the welkin ring,” welkin being an archaic English term for the heavens. When George Whitefield published it in 1753, he changed the first line to read, “Hark! The herald angels sing,” and so it has remained that way ever since.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’ angelic hosts proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”
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