December 17, 2024

At last week’s wonderful Senior Ministry gathering (kudos to our Senior Ministry Planning Team), we were asked about our least favorite Christmas carol and our most favorite.

The least favorite was easy for a lot of us: “Grandma got run over by a reindeer.” I don’t want any grandmas to be hit by a reckless sleigh driver.

But for my favorite, it was a more difficult choice for me. I have so many favorites:  Joy to the World, O Come All Ye Faithful, Once in Royal David’s City, Silent Night, Away in A Manger, and on and on and on.

But when I thought a little more about it, I had to settle on “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.” It’s a plain song chant from the Middle Ages with a text from the Fourth Century that Christians have been singing at Christmas for centuries.

It’s packed full of such incredible poetry. Phrases like: “he the source, the ending he;” “powers, dominions bow before him;” “now he shines the long expected;” “let no tongue on earth be silent, every voice in concert ring.”

But my favorite part of the hymn is that last part of each stanza: “evermore and evermore.” The hymn has us chanting the word evermore no less than ten times. That’s a lot of evermores. 

But I need every one of them, because I need Christ to be with me forever and ever and ever.  Not just when I think I need him, but even when I don’t. And while I can, I’ll keep singing my evermores and when I can’t sing them anymore, I’ll listen, and then one day, when I can neither sing nor listen, the angel hosts will sing them for me.

In the never-ending love of God in Christ Jesus,

Pastor John D. Morris