Come, Lord Jesus
“Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
Matthew 24:30 (ESV)
In 1744 Charles Wesley was reflecting on the situation of orphans and people living in social deprivation in the areas around him. Prompted by this and a prophecy in Haggai: ‘And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts’ (Haggai 2:7), Wesley wrote a hymn of hope to remind people of Jesus’ nativity and to prepare for his second coming. He entitled it Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.
The hymn speaks of the Messiah promised long ago to Israel, who was born to set people free from sin and fear. But it also tells of how that saviour, Jesus, was born to reign in our lives forever, and ultimately to raise us with him eternally. For people living in dark and difficult times, Wesley wanted to point them to the one who’d come to transform their lives, and give them real hope for the future.
The hymn was popularised in Britain by the famous Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, who in 1855, at the age of only 21, preached a Christmas sermon based on it. Since that time, it has been widely published and sung across Christian denominations, with a number of modern recordings released in recent years.
The words of this hymn fit particularly well with the season of Advent and how Jesus comes to us. Often this season of Advent is associated with the birth of Christ, but the word ‘Advent’ (from Latin adventus, meaning ‘coming’, ‘arrival’) is primarily used to refer to Jesus’s second coming. In the New Testament, Jesus’s second coming is translated from the Greek parousia, meaning ‘presence’, ‘arrival’. Matthew 24 uses this word several times (vv.37, 39), and speaks of the need to prepare and be ready for the return of Jesus – to wait expectantly for him, “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:44).
Prayer
Loving Father, even as Jesus lives in our lives now, through the Holy Spirit, may we live in hopeful expectation of the day of his Parousia in the way we live our lives, sharing his light and love with other people. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
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Study by: Simon Williams About the author: |
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Local congregation:
Grace Communion Peterborough
Farcet Village Hall
Main Street
Farcet
Peterborough
PE7 3AN
Meeting time:
Sunday 11.00 am
Local congregational contact:
Richard Dempsey
Email: richard.dempsey@btinternet.com
Local church website: GRACE COMMUNION CHURCH PETERBOROUGH – Landing Page
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church