Three Meditations on the Advent Hymn

Advent Choral Evening Prayer with Immanuel Lutheran School

December 18, 2024

First Meditation

The theme of tonight’s featured hymn is the two kinds of judgment coming at Christ’s final Advent. And the two kinds of judgment reveals two kinds of people.

What are the two kinds of people? It’s embedded in the beautiful piece we just heard, conducted by our amazing music teacher, Mrs. DiMarino.

Non nobis, Domine,

Sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

Non nobis - “not to us [be the glory].” The world is filled with people who say the opposite: “To us be the glory; to me be the glory.” If we’re honest, that’s who we are, deep down. What a gift, to learn from early childhood to sing the opposite: Non nobis - “not to us,” Domine, “Lord” - Sed nomini tuo - “but to Your name” be the glory.

The world’s holiday season provokes in us avarice and desire. Advent calls out to each of us: “Give Christ the glory - for He is coming to rescue you.”

Second Meditation

This great hymn about the final Advent of Christ has become immensely popular across Christian denominations. It was written by Charles Wesley, who with his brother John became an early leader of the Methodist movement at Oxford. Wesley’s original text began, “Lo! He comes with clouds descending, Once for favored sinners slain.” That sounds a bit like Calvinism. Wesley was not a Calvinist, and today the text is altered to “once for every sinner slain.”

Regardless of how you understand the atonement, Wesley’s original text is good as he meant it. He was picking up on the words of the angels singing at the birth of Christ: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” [Luke 2:14 NIV]. Sometimes this is translated as God’s goodwill or on those whom God is well pleased.

This is what the birth of Christ means: God declares He is well-pleased with you. Not because of who you are, but because of who He is, what He does. You are a sinner, it’s true. You are also highly favored and forgiven in Jesus. As we heard Augie read so well, He “loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.” So go to sleep tonight knowing that in you, God is well-pleased; His favor rests on you.

Third Meditation

The Book of Revelation pulls the curtain back on what’s happening in the Kingdom of God. In Rev. 5, St. John sees a throne, and four living creatures, and presbyters, and in the middle of it all, a Lamb. The Lamb is standing—alive!

This is earthshattering, because in all the worship of the Jerusalem Temple, the priests and people would gather around a slaughtered lamb. The lamb’s blood would be spilled, and the lamb’s meat roasted on the altar’s fire.

But here, the Lamb is standing. It says, “Behold, in the midst of the throne … stood a Lamb as though it had been slain…. Then He came and took the scroll.” The Lamb is alive, but at the same time He bears the marks of having died.

That’s what we were singing about in stanza 3:

Those dear tokens of His passion

Still His dazzling body bears …

Gaze we on those glorious scars!

The Lamb who was the sacrifice is alive! Jesus who was crucified is risen from the dead. He forever has the scars, and He holds them before the Father and says, “Father, forgive them.”

What else to all this can we say but the words of Mary? “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” +INJ+