Let’s be honest: I already started my Christmas shopping, right around the time that Halloween costumes and Christmas wreaths were hanging on display only one aisle apart in the craft store. I’m guessing you’ve started too, or at least you have a list.

Thus begins the American Christian’s tension, in which it seems that we are surrounded by Christmas spirit (by which I mean, Christmas spending) long before the first Sunday of Advent arrives with its liturgical waiting . . . and that hyper “Christmas spirit” vanishes as quickly as the holiday sales after December 25, never mind the popularity of a holiday song celebrating an entire twelve days of Christmas.

For those who seek to hold on to Christmas with a meditative spirit — and not only Christmas, but the quiet prelude of Advent and the joyous postlude of Christmastide — I recommend Joy to the World: The Forgotten Meaning of Christmas (Paraclete Press 2013).

Joy to the World reflects on the text of Isaac Watts’ famous hymn, and invites us to recall that “Joy to the World” is no mere Christmas hymn — it is a Second Coming hymn, a still-waiting hymn, an all-creation-singing hymn, a joyful hymn for Advent and Christmas and Christmastide, in short: it is a hymn for all seasons!

For the gift of this reminder alone, I am grateful, but Joy to the World brings the additional gift of twelve excerpts from Isaac Watts’ writings for our journeys through the twelve days of Christmastide. Watts’ meditations on Christ the King encourage our souls to see in the Holy Infant a vision of the final fulfillment: the love of God triumphant over all suffering, the thrill of peace that heaven and nature sing.

Several practical Monday Muse suggestions on how to bless your spirit and your ministry with Joy to the World: (1) As I imply above, use this book to ground your own spirit through holiday busyness, which is no small task during the holidays! (2) Talk to your church musician now — please tell me that you are already talking to your church musician about December — about the unconventional idea of incorporating Watt’s “Joy to the World” throughout the Advent and Christmastide seasons, and then meditate on the hymn as an Advent sermon series with Joy to the World providing inspiration. (3) Plan a Twelve Days of Christmas series — as a daily adult ed coffee group, for example, or as a daily email — with a focus on Isaac Watts’ writings in Joy to the World.

Joy to the World offers the reminder that — no matter the shiny packaging, the too-tinselled Christmas trees, or the gift-giving panic that accompanies the news, “Christmas is coming” — most importantly, Christ is coming, incarnate and in glory, with truth and grace to prove the wonders of his love!

A copy of Joy to the World: The Forgotten Meaning
of Christmas was provided to me by the publisher.
This book was just released on November 1, 2013.