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Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · December 21, 2025 · Who Needs Christmas series

Jeremy MacDonald looks at the story behind "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," John 1:14, and Jesus' baptism, then leads into communion. Christmas is not only for the world but personal: God with us, King of all kings, and King of your life.

More from Jeremy MacDonald · The Who Needs Christmas series

Topics: Joy, Forgiveness, Christmas

Transcript

[0:00] Well, hey, this next song that we're gonna sing is a Christmas classic, "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." My name's Jeremy. I'm the teaching pastor here. I've grown up in church. I've heard this song lots. I've sung this song lots, but I was doing a little bit of digging, but before we got into it, I wanted to offer some ideas on it, some thoughts. And so I did a little research and some of this could be interesting to you, and maybe it's just my own intrigue or interest. But three quick notes on "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." The first is that this song was written a couple hundred years ago by Charles Wesley. And that's cool because Charles and his brother John Wesley were absolutely pivotal in our movement. The Wesleyan Church, we're a Wesleyan church here. And so those brothers and the way that they thought about faith and planted churches have shaped and informed our movement over the last number of years, hundreds of years.

[0:53] And so it's always cool when we get a chance to sing a song written by Charles. The second thing is that the tune we're about to sing it to is not the tune that Charles had in mind when he penned those words. See, Charles wanted the song initially to be the same tune as "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today. Oh, Hallelujah." You see why I don't sing or have my mic on during the worship time? But that was the tune that he was kind of hoping for. And what happened was about a hundred years after he wrote it, they changed the tune and he couldn't make a stink about it 'cause he was dead. And so it became the tune that you hear today, which was originally written as a celebration of the Gutenberg press. It was a German civic ceremony, 400 years after the invention of the printing press.

[1:41] And that's the tune. And so it's no longer known as the printing press song, but "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Okay, those things don't really matter. The third thing, and the third thing to note, and the thing that really does matter is that this song is a mashup from two of the texts that we get the story of Christmas from. So in Matthew's Gospel, we read about these wise men that came to hear and to see and to find the newborn king of the Jews. And then Luke would record the Christmas story. And he highlighted the fact that in the fields there were shepherds. And this angel of the Lord appeared to declare this great news, and they were terrified because it was an angel of the Lord. And then there's huge host of angels began to sing and to celebrate and to herald the coming of this newborn king.

[2:31] And that's the song that we're about to sing. But the question I've wondered is why celebrate a newborn king? Why sing and celebrate a baby? You see, our stories, we of course know the life of Jesus and what happens after Christmas morning, but for the magi and for the shepherds, they didn't yet know all that God was going to do, but they still had cause to celebrate and they still had cause to make a big deal about what God was doing. And I think we get our cue for why it was so important from another one of the Gospels. So if you didn't realize, there are four biographies of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And where Matthew and Luke will tell the story, the historical story of the birth of Jesus, John takes a different turn.

[3:23] John actually offers a little bit of thoughtfulness and theology of how to understand it. And so the interesting thing to note is that John, as he starts his Gospel in chapter 1, verse 14, he writes this about Jesus. He writes, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us," the Word being Jesus, that God would send His Son to make His dwelling among us, that His kingdom and His presence would be on this earth through the person of Jesus. And for the people in those days, hearing John's words, for the first time, they would remember, they would think of, as he articulated Jesus as the Word, they would think back to the prophecies about this Jesus, the prophecies about this Christmas story.

[4:13] You see, the prophet Isaiah, you know, many years before Jesus, in chapter 55 of Isaiah, we'd read, "So is my word that goes out from my mouth." This is God speaking. "So my word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." It's this sense that Jesus is the Word of God coming to this earth to do the work of His heavenly Father, to do the work of God in our midst, that we have God with us in the story of Christmas, that right from the beginning, God was doing something to inaugurate His kingdom work and to transform and change the whole world.

[4:59] And so then this song becomes hopefully full of life and full of, I think, intrigue and an impressive calling out of who Jesus is. You know, the song will sing it. You know, we sing, "Risen with healing in His wings." It's this line that comes from from the prophet Malachi. We learned about this if you were here just a month or two ago, that the Messiah, they believed, would have healing on the wings, on the edges of His garment. And that people that would reach out, the woman who would reach out and touch His garment, and she would be healed. And for a couple thousand years, people have been reaching out to be healed by this Messiah, Jesus. And then the lines that I find so fascinating, "Joyful, all ye nations, rise, join the triumph of the skies." You need to see.

[5:46] Sometimes we think about this as just like this, this nice kind of invitation. It's a Christmas carol. It's kind of, it's jovial when you see the original idea behind joining with the angels actually comes all the way from the messianic hope of the Psalms. You see in Psalm 2, the kings and the world, the people in authority of the world are at war with each other. And they're fighting against the work of the Lord. And God says, "Therefore, you kings, be wise and be warned. You rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, the Son of God, Jesus, lest He be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for His wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him." And so, "Joyful, all ye nations, rise." It's not an invitation, but it's actually a declaration that the whole world needs to know. And we can declare that Jesus is the king, that He is on the throne, that He is the one that we celebrate at Christmas time, that all people can know the world is not the way that it should be up until Jesus is the one that we follow after.

[6:52] So, friends, let's rise up. Let's declare and sing out with strength. Let's sing out with power. Let's the angels, that Jesus is the King of all kings. Christmas is a time of joy. Christmas is such a good celebration when you've got all the kids kicking around because there's something about that kind of excitement that comes from the young ones. You know what it's like, you've seen it around you, you and some of you've experienced it. I find that my, I've got three kids, 10, almost eight and six, I find that my parents and grand like, or their grandparents, my parents, Chantel's parents, they get more excited about Christmas. 'Cause of course, with the kids, it's so much fun. You get to see the story alive in their eyes. You get to see the celebration and then they also sugar them up and do all that kind of stuff, which is sometimes disappointing.

[7:43] But the point is that Christmas comes with all sorts of joy. That's the part that we get to herald, that we get to celebrate, that we get to share with the world around us. It's a message that Christ has given to His church, His people, to this day, that we get to herald and declare that we get to in and involve children in declaring the joy to all around us. But it's not just something that is for the people corporately. It's not just for the nations. It's not just for people generally, it's for specific people. It's for you. It's for me. It's a part of our story. It's a part of our journey. And so here in just a moment, you're gonna get to see the waters of baptism where somebody gets to declare that as much as Jesus is the King of all kings, He's also the king of their life.

[8:31] And the idea that joy comes when someone puts Christ in the rightful place in their life is so evident to see. We love to celebrate here at Tidal Church when people declare that publicly, because you get to see that joy lived out in a personal and transformative kind of way. Now, before you get a chance to see these two stories, I wanted to read you just a couple of scriptures. For some of you, baptism is something you've seen all throughout your life. If you've, you know, been a part of church world and you've seen it, it kind of just makes sense or you've at least acknowledged it before. If you're newer to faith or you're not sure what you believe, and you're here and you're like, it's kind of an odd practice, what's the whole deal with the water? Every church gets built with a tank of water that's like a hot tub. Like, what's the deal with all of this? And so, you know, it comes back all the way. When we celebrate, of course, Christmas, we're celebrating Jesus and His life coming as the King.

[9:22] And when Jesus started His ministry here on this earth, He started it actually by going through the waters of baptism Himself. Although He was sinless and needed no redemption for anything 'cause He was completely blameless, He still walked through the waters and doing. So, we capture this beautiful moment where God, the Father, speaks to God the Son and declares His work in this world. And so I just wanna read you these two prophecies about Jesus and how we see their fulfillment in the act of baptism. Going back to Isaiah 42, the Lord saying, "Here is My servant whom I uphold, My chosen one in whom I delight. I will put My Spirit on Him and He will bring justice to the nations," this good news for all people.

[10:17] And then in Psalm 2, we read the later portion just earlier, but earlier before that, the Lord says, "He says to Me, 'You are My Son. Today I have become Your Father. Ask of Me and I'll make You, I'll make the nations Your inheritance, the ends of the earth, Your possession.'" And so we jump ahead to Matthew, and where Matthew records Jesus' baptism, we hear these declarations, we hear these prophecies being fulfilled. As Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. And at that moment, heaven was open and He saw the Spirit of God descending, like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is My Son, there it is, whom I love.

[11:03] And with Him I am well pleased." And so for 2,000 years, Christians have followed Jesus into the waters of baptism, declaring that He is King over their life, declaring that without Him we are nothing, declaring that we need this King to lead and to guide us, to offer the forgiveness for our sins, to experience the resurrection that comes from following after Him. Well, this Advent season, these last few Sundays here at Tidal Church, we've been asking the question, who needs Christmas? And at the very beginning, we took a look throughout history and the story of the scriptures of God wanting to bless the world, recognizing that the world needs Christmas. We also discovered that God needed a demonstration of His love for the world in sending His Son to be with us.

[11:55] And that we all need Christmas because we need a Savior to come and to bring that peace that God has promised. But for this morning, and as we're coming into an end, in the close of our service this last Sunday before Christmas, I kind of wonder if maybe the person that needs Christmas is you, like you specifically, that when you're here and you get a chance to sing these songs and declare these truths, there's just something that happens in your heart and in your soul that when you're here and you get a chance to see the joy and the celebration of all of the kids and these families, there's something that kind of goes on in your heart when you hear the story of God transforming somebody's life, that has an impact on you and on even your story.

[12:47] And so the idea that Christmas is God showing up, becoming and taking on flesh to make His dwelling amongst us, is a personal thing. It means that God is here with and for you. And our hope, of course, is as people that stand up and open the scriptures and talk about Jesus and faith is that this would be not just a corporate thing, but it'd be a personal thing for you. And one of the most personal things that we can do to connect with our heavenly Father is this practice, this sacrament, this thing that Christians do called taking communion, the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, this sacrament that for thousands of years gives us an opportunity to be reminded of how close Jesus is to you and to me.

[13:44] And it comes from Jesus Himself. You know, Jesus, who came to bring peace on earth and goodwill for all mankind, gathered together with His disciples the night before He would go to the cross. And while they were eating, Matthew records that Jesus took bread, He gave thanks and He broke it, and He gave it to His disciples, saying, "Take and eat. This is My body." And in that moment, the disciples wouldn't have fully understood what Jesus was about to do. But here we are 2000 years later, understanding the breadth of this invitation, the intensity of this moment, the sacrifice of what was about to happen. And then He took the cup, gave thanks, and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you.

[14:32] This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." And so here we are, last Sunday before Christmas, to connect the most deeply with this Jesus from the Christmas story, to do the thing that He's asked us to do, to remember Him and remember what He's done for the forgiveness of sins. And you gotta understand, this is more than just the forgiveness for that look or that action that happened yesterday when you were shopping and there were too many people and you said that word or you had that thought and you're like, "Oh, that's not of God, like that." There's forgiveness for that. We're grateful that's true, and those moments are gonna continue on. And we, I bring those to the Lord, wanting Him to shape our hearts.

[15:20] But the forgiveness of sins is this incredible change that happens in and through our world, that the brokenness that you experience and that you felt, and that especially at Christmas time, sometimes can feel like such a stark difference because the joy and the hope of Christmas sometimes butts up against, and maybe this is your story, it butts up against the realities of it being the hard Christmas without that person, it comes across as a challenging time to recognize that this is the Christmas where they're not gonna be with us, or that this relationship is yet to be reconciled, or this family member is still so far away. And in the midst of all of that, we say that there is a God who is bringing His kingdom to this earth.

[16:05] And that if we would be the kinds of people that would meet with Him and allow Him to shape and change our lives, that we can be the holders of this love and this peace and this story. But it starts with us taking a moment and remembering, reflecting, and thanking the Lord for what He's done for us. And so in just a moment, our ushers are gonna wander through and they'll hand out the bread and the juice, just to note, this is, the Scriptures say, something that we as Christians do. And so if you're here and you haven't yet declared that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, you can do that. In a moment I'll pray a prayer. And if you can authentically in your heart repent of your sins and turn and look to Him, you too should join us in this practice. But for the rest of us that have declared this, we also note that the time and usually we take the time between when the bread and the juice get handed out.

[16:56] And then eventually we'll take it all together. But we take these few moments to quietly reflect and allow the Spirit of God to work in our own hearts, to allow us to remember and reflect what Jesus has done for us. That as we celebrate at Christmas His kingship, that His kingship extends of course to our own hearts. And we ask the Spirit of God to open us up to do the work of transforming us into the kinds of people that follow fully after Him. And it's not wrong if you're like, "I'm not sure where I'm at. You know, I came here for the cute kids. I came here because this is tradition. I'm home for Christmas." It's fine, you let this pass by. But don't lose sight of the fact that this story of Christmas is a personal one. And we hope that you would experience this Jesus that has done all the things that need to happen so that you can experience the presence of God today in a personal kind of way.

[17:53] And you can reach out and He will grab a hold of you. So would you join me in praying? Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that we can remember You in this way, that You've invited us to experience Your presence in this way. And I pray for a couple of the folks that are here, and there's just, there's probably a few of them that are just not quite sure. I mean, they've maybe heard the Christmas story and they've been around, but they didn't realize how much it means to actually declare with their hearts, their mouths, that You are Lord. And so I just pray as they might pray, even in these moments, "Lord, I desperately need You. I need You in the way that Matthew needs You. I need You in the way that these kids can show up with joy.

[18:38] I need You in the way that the angels would declare that You are the King. And I want You to be the King, Lord. Would You forgive me of all that I've done wrong? And would You be the Lord of my life from this day forward?" And Lord, for all people who declare that in our hearts and speak that out, Lord, we know that You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins, to offer us Your righteousness, that we could celebrate this and we could look to You. And for all of us that this has been our journey, would we take these moments and would Your Spirit speak to our hearts? Because Christmas is a need that we have. We need this hope. And the world is still broken, there's still sinfulness, there's still difficulty, there's still heartache. And Lord, would You allow us as we come close to You, would You minister to our hearts?

[19:26] Would You reveal the things that You wanna reshape and reform in us as we prepare to take communion, the bread and the cup? Would Your Spirit do its work in cleansing us and healing us, and helping us and forgiving us? We pray these things in Jesus' name.