“Prepare Him Room” is the name of this year’s Christmas Eve Carol Service. The words come from the carol “Joy to the World” written by Isaac Watts in 1719. The full first verse is:
Joy to the World, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heaven and nature sing.
What’s strange about “Joy to the World” is that there is nothing particularly “Christmassy” about it. Tradition means we sing this carol at Christmas, but the reality is, if we look hard at the words, that this carol is more about Christ’s second coming than it is about his first. The Lord is come! … The Saviour reigns! … No more let sin and sorrows grow! … He comes to make his blessings flow! … He rules the world with truth and grace! Right now the earth has not yet fully received her King, sin and sorrow are still a very present reality and Christ’s rule on earth is manifest only in his Church.
As Christians we live in the “already and not yet” of Christ’s reign. Joy to the World reminds us that we can celebrate His first coming and all that means, but the ultimate fulfillment of that joy comes with the hope and reality of His second coming.
As we approach Christmas it’s easy to lose sight of the “reason for the season”. Perhaps you are becoming more cynical as you get older, and the commercialisation of Christmas is starting to wear you down. Maybe the prospect of spending time with family fills you with trepidation rather than anticipation. For some of us this will be the first Christmas without a beloved family member or friend present.
Singing “Joy to the World” in the face of all this can seem hard if not impossible. But we are reminded that our joy is based on a hope in a real person and on a very real and certain future event. Jesus will return and “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev 21:4) Joy to the World indeed!!!