The King Shall Come

One week to Christmas day, this being the first year that I don't feel that the shopping season is driving me to get there. The "prayer manual" I have been using is soaking me in Scripture four times a day, mostly the psalms, which has been a constant source of readjustment and refocusing, even if it is only for a few minutes. And, every now and again I come across something that really catches me off guard, like yesterday's hymn:

The King shall come when morning dawns, and light triumphant breaks;
When beauty gilds the eastern hills, and life to joy awakes.

Not, as of old, a little child, to bear, and fight, and die,
But crowned with glory like the sun that lights the morning sky.

The King shall come when morning dawns and earth’s dark night is past;
O haste the rising of that morn, the day shall ever last.

And let the endless bliss begin, by weary saints foretold,
When right shall triumph over wrong, and truth shall be extolled.

The King shall come when morning dawns and light and beauty brings:
Hail, Christ the Lord! Your people pray, come quickly, King of kings.

Greek

I have never seen this before, or heard it sung. Does anyone know of a recording of this that I could get ahold of?

But the words grabbed me right away. What a wonderful precursor to next Sunday's celebration. Especially the line: "Not, as of old, a little child, to bear, and fight, and die..." Next Sunday we need to remember, as N.T. Wright so astutely points out in Matthew for Everyone,

"At the heart of the Christmas story in Matthew's gospel is a baby who poses such a threat to the most powerful man around that he kills a whole village full of other babies in order to try to get rid of him...Whatever else you say about Jesus, from his birth onwards, people certainly found him a threat. He upset their power-games, and suffered the usual fate of people who do that." (p. 14).

And while Jesus as a baby was already a thorn in the side of the power-holders of his day, Christmas is also a time to remember not just his first advent, but to renew hope afresh in his second. We say, "Come quickly, King of Kings!"

But crowned with glory like the sun that lights the morning sky....