God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

God rest ye merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay,

For Jesus Christ our Savior

Was born upon this day,

To save us all from Satan’s power

When we were gone astray.

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy;

O tidings of comfort and joy!

In Bethlehem in Jewry

This blessed babe was born,

And laid within a manger

Upon this blessed morn:

The which His mother Mary

Did nothing take in scorn.

From God our heavenly Father

A blessed angel came,

And unto certain shepherds

Brought tidings of the same,

How that in Bethlehem was born

The Son of God by name.

The shepherds at those tidings

Rejoiced much in mind,

And left their flocks afeeding

In tempest, storm, and wind,

And went to Bethlehem straightway,

The blessed babe to find.

Now to the Lord sing praises,

All you within this place,

And with true love and brotherhood

Each other now embrace;

This holy tide of Christmas

All other doth deface.

TRADITIONAL ENGLISH CAROL (EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)

THIS CAROL was first published in 1827, but even then it was introduced as “an ancient carol, sung in the streets of London.” In fact, old London had municipal watchmen who were licensed to perform certain tasks, including the singing of Christmas carols. This was one of their songs.

In A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge hears this song sung joyously in the street and tells the singer he’ll hit him with a ruler unless he stops singing. Of course that was not the intended response to this carol. The point is that joy reigns on Christmas Day because of God’s great gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. We can “rest merry” in the knowledge that Christ has paid our penalty for going astray and has set us free from the power of evil.

This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her fiancé, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit.”

Matthew 1:18-20