A happy, quick moving song, How Great our Joy is only sorta familiar to me. I’ve had the pleasure of singing it often enough to recognize it but not enough to have it memorized. It’s a lovely hymn that walks you through the angels’ conversation with the shepherds.
Lyrics
While by the sheep we watched at night,
Glad tidings brought an angel bright.
Refrain
How great our joy! Great our joy!
Joy, joy, joy! Joy, joy, joy!
Praise we the Lord in heaven on high!
Praise we the Lord in heaven on high!
There shall be born, so He did say,
In Bethlehem a Child today.
Refrain
There shall the Child lie in a stall,
This Child who shall redeem us all.
Refrain
This gift of God we’ll cherish well,
That ever joy our hearts shall fill.
Refrain
Author and History
We actually don’t know who wrote this hymn, it is a traditional German carol. In fact you might know this other German Christmas carol as well. O come Little Children. Theodar Baker translated the first two verses into English. In fact, if you want to know about this Christmas song, Celebrating Holidays did a write up that might intrigue.
Pondering How Great Our Joy
Don’t you just love songs that speak scripture back to you? Sometimes in not exact words, but in the overall telling. It’s lovely to sing God’s word back to him!
In this one we start with the shepherds and quickly move to the angels. The angels tell the glad tidings of a child to be born in Bethlehem. It closely with how this child is a gift of God, and we sing of our great joy.
It’s so true isn’t it? That joy we have in the hope given to us? It’s just marvellous and worth singing about. 🙂
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