Lo He Comes with Clouds Descending
Lyrics by Charles Wesley
This hymn gives me chills and the times I’ve performed this song I’ve loved singing out “deeply wailing!” so loud my voice rang around the church. It was only after studying the lyrics for this devotional that I noticed that this was a description of what would exude from the mouths of those who helped crucify Jesus when they “the true Messiah see”.
Considered one of the great Anglican hymns of the 19th century by the great Charles Wesley, it borrows its imagery from Revelation, the final coming and setting to rights of God’s creation by the Messiah. Setting things to rights means sweeping away what is wrong and this is precisely what the hymn says will happen to “all who hate him” as they are “deeply wailing” when they realize that Christ has finally come. Christ coming on the clouds descending is their terror but our joy.
The feel of the hymn is one of great anticipation. “O come quickly” it says three times in supplication. Creation “groans” for Christ to come. How hard it is to wait, and how much harder when it is for something greatly desired: justice, healing, a new child, a marriage, or a new beginning. How much greater must our anticipation be for the ultimate justice, the ultimate healing, the ultimate marriage, the ultimate birth of not only a child but of all children of God, and a true beginning that never ends.
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