A tradition I started on this blog in 2021 was the exploration of the stories behind and meanings of various Christmas songs in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I’ve examined a number of songs over these past three years: Angels From the Realms of Glory, Angels We Have Heard on High, Away in a Manager, The First Noel, God Rest You Merry Gentlemen, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Joy to the World, O Come All Ye Faithful, O Come O Come Emmanuel, O Little Town of Bethlehem, O Holy Night, Silent Night, The Twelve Days of Christmas, We Three Kings and Who Is He in Yonder Stall. It has been fun seeing how these songs come from different countries and different times and to think more deeply about the truths of Christmas each song affirms. While I have covered some of the most popular – and a few that are pretty obscure – there are still many classic Christmas hymns to examine, so I will keep the tradition alive again this year. The Christmas song I’ll look at in this post is one that is often sung at the start of the Advent season, “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.”
The Story
This Christmas carol was written by the same person who wrote “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” Charles Wesley. In addition to being known as the brother of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, Charles is also known as one of the most prolific songwriters in Christian history, composing more than 6,000 hymns. He wrote the words of “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” in 1744, five years after the publication of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
The Scripture that inspired this song was not the Christmas story but rather Haggai 2:7: “And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts” (KJV). These words of the prophet do not describe the circumstances of Jesus’s birth but rather the result of this event in terms of its fulfillment of God’s promises to His people and the longings of the human heart that we experience in this broken world. The England of Wesley’s time was marred by a lack of care for orphans and prominent divisions between social classes, which Wesley’s heart longed to see rectified. This song was written as a response to those social ills in light of the passage, pointing people to remember the hope that awaits in Christ’s return so that they might both long for it and also pray for it.
Wesley included this song in his 1745 collection of 18 hymns called, Hymns on the Nativity of our Lord. The years to follow would see it published in other hymns collections by figures such as prominent evangelist (and friend of the Wesleys) George Whitefield (1753) and August Toplady (1776), the author of the hymn “Rock of Ages.” Many trace Charles Spuregon’s use of some key lines of the song (speaking of Christ being born a child and yet a king) in a 1855 sermon as causing it to grow even more popular in England and cementing its place in hymnbooks.
Like many hymns and Christmas songs, the music we are most likely familiar with came from a different source and at a different time. It is unclear what tune it was initially paired with, but a common one it was paired with was “Stuttgart” by Christian Friedrich Witt, a tune written in 1716. The tune that we usually sing it, though, is the Welsh tune written by Rowland Hugh Prichard in 1830 known as “Hyfrydol,” which is also paired with “Jesus, What a Friend of Sinners.” You will at times, though, hear it sung today to the “Stuttgart” tune or to another one called “Cross of Jesus” (the latter seems to be more commonly used in England than America).
The Song
Wesley’s composition only consisted of two stanzas of eight lines each. Two additional verses were written by Mark E. Hunt and published by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in 1978; when these verses are sung, they are put in the middle of the song with the original verses becoming verse 1 and 4. I’ll focus on the song in its more traditional form.
Something we might fail to recognize when we sing it is that this song is not as much a song about Jesus but a prayer to Jesus, as it makes many requests of him. The first is found in the opening words, as it says “Come.” Thus, it looks forward to and asks for Jesus’s return. This fact has led some to state that this is less of a “Christmas” song in terms of celebrating the birth of Jesus and more of an “Advent” song, as this season of Advent (which comes from the Latin word for “coming”) looks back at the longing of the people of Israel for the arrival of the Messiah to help us as we now stand as ones longing and waiting for the second coming of Jesus.
The song makes other requests. It says, “from our fears and sins release us,” asking for Jesus to do this. That is followed by the phrase, “let us find our rest in thee,” which is more of an exhortation to us to take hold of what Christ has offered us than a petition of Jesus, but it reminds us that we are talking to Jesus by noting that we should find the rest in thee (which means “you”). Another request appears in the word “now thy gracious kingdom bring,” showing that this song not only asks for Jesus to come but also for his kingdom to come. In addition to longing for the kingdom to come on earth, the song also expresses a longing for his kingdom to be established in our hearts with the closing lines of “By thine own eternal spirit/rule in all our hearts alone/by thine all sufficient merit/raise us to thy glorious throne.”
This prayer to Jesus also tells us a lot about Jesus and his work. He is addressed as “long expected Jesus,” reminding us of how long the people of God waited for the Messiah to come and that he stood as “Israel’s strength and consolation.” The purpose of his ministry is also made clear, as the song tells us that he was “born to set thy people free” in verse 1 and “born thy people to deliver” in verse 2. As the one was “born a child and yet a King,” he stands as the one who was “born to reign in us forever.” The reason that he can rule in us, rescue us from our sins, and rise up to his glorious throne is because of his “all sufficient merit,” an allusion to the fact that we are saved by and through Christ’s righteousness and not our own.
The song also tells him, through old English words of “thou art” which means “you are,” that Jesus is the “hope of all the earth” as well as the “joy of every longing heart.” Between these phrases are the words “dear desire of every nation.” This phrase may sound a bit unusual, but in it we see the influence of Haggai 2:7. Interestingly enough, this phrase “desire of the nations” also appears in “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” Wesley’s other famous Christmas song, pointing to some special affinity that Charles Wesley seems to have to this verse and title.
While these words appear in Haggai 2:7 in the King James Version, which is what Wesley would have read, they do not appear in many modern translations: “I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of Armies” (CSB); “And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts” (ESV); “I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty” (NIV). These modern translations reflect that the Hebrew word used here is singular but likely has a plural meaning (what is known as a “collective singular”) and that the items referenced by it are likely those found in the following verse (gold and silver). Thus, the phrase “desire of the nations” in Haggai 2:7 that Wesley read may not be a reference to the Messiah at all.
That said, it would certainly still be true that Jesus is the one who ultimately is desired by people of all nations, that within all of us is a longing and a desire for what Jesus brings. Therefore, the truth of the song remains, even if the original reason for this particular phrase may not stand.
In addition, we should recognize that while Wesley’s reading of Haggai 2:7 was a key factor in the composition of this song, it is by no means the only Scripture reference that one sees in the text. In fact, Dr. Ligon Duncan notes in his discussion of this song that he found sixteen allusions or references to biblical truths in it. For example, we see the promise of rest given by Jesus in Matthew 11:28 and the Spirit’s rule in the heart of a believer found in places like Romans 5:5.
May the Scripture-saturated words of this song and prayer be our words in this Advent season, as we remember and experience now the blessings that Jesus came to bring to our hearts and lives now as we long for his return and the kingdom of God that will be established in its fullness at that time.
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