Joy to the world! The
Lord is come: let earth receive her king;
Let every heart
prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.
With “Joy to the
world” in my heart and mind, I’m looking each of these twelve days of Christmas
for the beauty and wonder in God’s world, for instances of the joy that runs
through all of creation.
It’s been warm here. While I actually enjoy wintry weather,
and while I’m a big fan of long spells of seasonable temperatures that might
indicate that our climate is still fundamentally stable, there is always joy in
seeing new growth.
This is what I found in the patch of mint on the south side
of our house: a little bit of green, a few new leaves growing among the dead
stalks of last summer’s plants.
One of our Easter hymns, “Now the green blade riseth” (Hymn
204), is set to the tune of the Christmas carol Noel Nouvelet. The last verse is
this:
When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Thy touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
Here’s the King’s College Choir from Cambridge singing Noel
Nouvelet:
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