Week 4: Love

For God So Loved

This evening, we light all four candles. We find ourselves on the last lap of this year’s Advent season, where the series of events are moving much more quickly. The Dawn From On High that God has been promising is right around the bend; or, as the Advent hymn we’ll be singing this week states so beautifully, Promise of dawn now our eyes behold. Let’s not get so caught up in the frenzy of these last few days - the last minute shopping, the baking, the holiday traditions that seem to multiply each year, the parties - that we find ourselves sliding into Christmas morning exhausted, disillusioned, spent. Instead, let’s continue to stop each evening and let the lessons of Advent pour over us, recalibrating our minds and hearts towards the greatest gift of love ever given.

Sing We the Song of Emmanuel, words and music by Stuart Townend, Keith Getty, Matt Papa, Matt Boswell (2019)

This week we will learn and sing a new Advent hymn, Sing We the Song of Emmanuel, written collaboratively by the hymn writing team at Getty Music, 300 years after Isaac Watts penned Joy to the World. Keith and Kristyn Getty are founding leaders of the Getty Music organization who hail from Northern Ireland. Their greatest musical passion is writing and championing great hymns of the church.

Their songwriting journey began in 2000 when Keith wrote the tune for In Christ Alone on the back of a Northern Ireland Electricity bill. Their hymn writing team includes a growing array of contributors who are as committed to family and the local church as they are to the craft of songwriting. Hymn Writer Matt Papa said that the third verse of "Sing We the Song of Emanuel` embodies all that the team really wanted to communicate with this song:

Joy and peace for the weary heart
Lift up your heads for your King has come
Sing for the light overwhelms the dark
Glory shining for all to see
Hope alive let the gospel ring
God has made a way
He will have the praise
Tell the world his name is Jesus

 Sing We the Song of Emmanuel

Stuart Townend, Keith Getty, Matt Papa, Matt Boswell (2019)

Sing we the song of Emmanuel

This the Christ who was long foretold

Lo in the shadows of Bethlehem

Promise of dawn now our eyes behold

God Most High in a manger laid

Lift your voices and now proclaim

Great and glorious Love has come to us

Join now with the hosts of heaven

Come we to welcome Emmanuel

King who came with no crown or throne

Helpless He lay the Invincible

Maker of Mary now Mary’s son

O what wisdom to save us all

Shepherds sages before Him fall

Grace and majesty what humility

Come on bended knee adore Him

Go spread the news of Emmanuel

Joy and peace for the weary heart

Lift up your heads for your King has come

Sing for the Light overwhelms the dark

Glory shining for all to see

Hope alive let the gospel ring

God has made a way He will have the praise

Tell the world His name is Jesus

(REPEAT)

Keith & Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa - Sing We The Song of Emmanuel (Lyrics Video)