A Christmas Love Song Series

Good morning. Please open your Bibles to Luke 24

How many of you know the name Isaac Watts?

Isaac Watts is typically referred to as “the father of English hymnody.” Over the course of his life, he wrote over 600 hymns, including Alas and Did my Savior Bleed, O God, Our Help in Ages Past, and When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. He also wrote what is arguably the most popular Christmas hymn ever, which is why we are talking about him this morning.

Isaac was a genius and a child prodigy. He had learned Latin (by age 5), Greek (by age 9), French (by age 11), and Hebrew (by age 13). As a boy, he had the annoying habit of echoing his parents’ commands in rhyming couplets. It was like being in the house with Dr. Seuss. Once, his father got so annoyed with it that he laid him across his lap to give him a whipping. Isaac looked up at him and said, “O father do some mercy take, and I will no more verses make.”

Isaac Watts never married, but he came close to it, once. A young woman named Elizabeth Singer, who was herself a published poet, actually fell in love with Watts sight-unseen through his published poems. Elizabeth was so taken with this man who could write so deeply and passionately that she threw caution to the wind and asked him to marry her in a letter.

Unfortunately for poor Isaac, he was not a handsome man. When they finally met, she retracted her offer. She wrote later that he was "only five feet tall, with a shallow face, hooked nose, prominent cheek bones, small eyes, and deathlike color.....I admired the jewel but not the setting that contained it.” So she swiped left.

So while Isaac might have lost out on love, this didn’t diminish his devotion to God or his joy at the coming of the Messiah. In 1719, he wrote his great hymn, “Joy to the World.” [transition]

This morning, we’re going to talk about how the Lord came into the world. And it starts with a love story. And if Isaac and Elizabeth isn’t a great love story, well, this one kind of is. I want to talk about three Christmas love songs. Kind of like a compilation CD.

The First Love Song: Joseph and Mary. Let’s look at Luke 1, starting in verse 26:

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed[b] to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary.

Let’s unpack that word “betrothed.” We usually think of that word as meaning the same thing as “engaged.” And while the word can be translated that way, the concept of betrothal in the first century was way different than the way we think of being engaged today.

In Mary and Joseph’s time, a legally binding marriage happened in three stages. First, there was the contract, or covenant. By this time, it was common for the prospective groom to take the initiative. The prospective bridegroom would travel from his father’s house to the house of the prospective bride. He would negotiate the price of purchase of the young woman with her father to become married to the bride. Once the bridegroom had paid the agreed upon price the marriage covenant was established, and the couple were regarded to be husband and wife.

However, they wouldn’t live together as husband and wife because he still needed to build a home for her. A betrothal would last twelve months, which would give the young man time to get their house ready. The young couple’s house would be in the same compound as his father’s house, or might even adjoin it.

So during this time, Joseph and Mary were getting to know each other. What made each other laugh, how they handled challenges and hard days, the strengths of their personalities that shone and the imperfections where they failed, their hopes and fears and dreams for the future, how many children they hoped to have one dayEach day that passed, their love for one another continued to deepen and grow.

And soon, the work on the house would be done, and the groom would come to take the bride to live with him. This usually took place at night and would involve the groom, best man and other male escorts who would leave the father’s house and form a procession to the bride’s home. Traditionally, the arrival of the groom would be announced with a shout, or maybe even a trumpet blast, and he would come and take his bride to the house he had prepared for her.

At least, that was how it was supposed to work. But this wasn’t going to be a typical betrothal. Let’s look together at Luke 1, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and spoke with her. Now, some of you ladies might claim you heard angels singing the first time you laid eyes on your husband. Lisa Green, Jeff told me you did. Is that true?