The Eschatological Hope of the Incarnation

“Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” is a song about hope, beauty, and the incarnation of Jesus. It was penned in 1744 by that great hymn writer, Charles Wesley. It became immensely popular during the nineteenth century through publication in various Methodist hymnals, translations into German, and a sermon by the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, in which the lyrics were highlighted. Though it is not usually as well-known as other hymns like “Joy to the World,” it has nonetheless become a mainstay of many churches during the Advent season.

Wesley had one particular verse in view when he wrote this hymn. Haggai 2:7 says, “And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.” Wesley found himself dwelling upon the thought of what it means for Jesus to fulfill the desire of every nation when he began to pen the first verse of this hymn. He saw the struggles and despair of those living around him, but recognized the eternal hope and blessing that Christ brings through His gospel. As he began writing, this first verse also appears to have been shaped by a prayer that had been published around the same time, and thus the hymn took shape, focusing on both the advent of Jesus’ incarnation, as well as the hope and glory of His second coming:

Come, thou long expected Jesus,

born to set thy people free;

from our fears and sins release us,

let us find our rest in thee.

Israel’s strength and consolation,

hope of all the earth thou art;

dear desire of every nation,

joy of every longing heart.[1]

Indeed, Jesus is the one for whom the nations long. Even creation itself is said to long for Christ in this way:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom. 8:19-25).

The first Advent of Christ was the fulfillment of the gospel promised. Now, all who call upon His name will be saved. But this first Advent points us to His second coming and the glorious hope that, when He returns, He will be welcomed as King by His people. The great desire of the nations will finally be fulfilled.

The Nations Desire Christ and Christianity

For the past several years, I have half-jokingly pointed out that, every Advent season, even the most pessimistic of Christians suddenly become postmillennial in their eschatological expectations. Just glance at the first verse of “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” again. He sets His people free from slavery to sin and death, releases us from our fears, and brings us to an everlasting and secure rest in Him. He is our strength and consolation, our strong hope, our deepest desire, and our greatest joy.

Every December, churches across the world are suddenly filled with the joyful sound of eager, expectant, and hopeful Christians whose sung words tell of the victory of Jesus Christ over all His enemies, His foot-stooling of all things beneath His feet, the pervasive spread of His Kingdom over the earth through the gospel, and the reverse of the curse brought upon us by Adam and Eve’s transgression. For at least a few weeks of the year, when we sing hymns like “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus,” everyone sounds postmillennial. In fact, I would be willing to wager that, deep down, everyone believes—perhaps in the deepest recesses of their hearts—that Christ is reigning now, His Church is conquering through the Word and gospel now. He is, even now, triumphantly delivering us from sin and death and Satan’s tyranny.

This is a beautiful picture. We see this in Christ’s first advent as He makes the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the mute to speak, and the dead to rise, but He even casts out demons, multiplies wine and food for the people, and gives of His own life to bring everlasting life to His elect.

Many will speak and act as though all of this ended with Christ’s ascension, as though He effectively left the earth without His presence. But Scripture tells us just the opposite: Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within Christians, Jesus, the hope of glory, still dwells with us (Col. 1:27). The Church, as the Body of Christ, effectively carries forth Christ’s mission to the nations, wherein all peoples are being discipled to obey all the teachings of Christ (Matt. 28:19).

Since Christ is still active through His people, and since 1 Corinthians 15:25-26 tells us that Christ must reign until all His enemies have been subjugated. Then the final enemy (death itself) will be destroyed, and our Christmas hymns cannot help but speak of a sovereign King who is victorious in all He puts His hand to.

What exactly is it, though, that the nations now desire? Many will be quick to point out that Christ will always be rejected by the sinner, apart from God’s sovereign drawing of them to Himself (Jn. 6:44). Is it wrong to say that Jesus is the desire of the nations?

The Desire for Beauty

Everyone, deep down, desires beauty. This desire, however, can only be truly satisfied in Christ. This is what we sing of in our Advent hymns, Christmas Carols, and in much of our evangelism. Jesus, as the objective standard of truth, goodness, and beauty, is the only one who can satisfy this deep longing.

Let us back up for a moment and ask, “What is beauty?” The question is, at first glance, almost entirely abstract. We all seem to know what beauty is intuitively, but describing it is a lot like trying to put into words how a favorite song makes us feel. Sure, we could explain some technical jargon, give a few analogies, and hope that we construct some sort of meaningful explanation, but deep down, we know we barely scratched the surface. If our feeling was an iceberg, we only managed to describe the very tip of it.

So it is with beauty. It is terribly difficult to describe, yet we know beauty exists. And, more importantly, we desire to have beauty in our lives.

This desire for beauty is perhaps one of the strongest indicators that not only does God exist, but that He has created us to experience beauty in Himself. Despite what many have suggested, beauty simply cannot be a subjective experience which changes from person to person. Intuitively, just as we know good from evil in our conscience (Rom. 2:14-16), so we know what true beauty is. When we encounter a painting from the brush of a Michelangelo, or a piece of music from a Bach, or a piece of literature from a Tolkien, are we not forced to admit that—while not perfect—we are encountering beauty?

Again, intuition seems to guide us in this search for beauty. We simply know what is beautiful and what is not. While much of what ostensibly passes as modern “art” is ugly, we know that genuinely beautiful things continue to exist.

There are very few things that people seem to agree upon these days. Everything, we are told, is entirely subjective, but this does not seem to stop disagreements. Case in point, you can start several internet arguments very quickly (and get a lot of traction) if you create a top ten list of personal favorite things. It does not particularly matter what those favorite things are—you could list your top ten favorite passages of Scripture, or pieces of art, or superheroes, or even your top ten favorite bakers from Des Moines, Iowa, born in the 1970s. Whatever the list, someone is practically bound to jump into the comment section to complain about how your list is incomplete, incorrect, or the most abysmal piece of anything ever posted to the internet.

This is the internet, however, and logical, kind, and respectful dialogue is often lacking. But we find these same disagreements in public, as people argue over what is true, good, and beautiful. On one hand, many reject the very existence of objective standards of truth, goodness, and beauty. On the other hand, many others believe that truth, goodness, and beauty exist, but only in the “eye of the beholder.” But, thankfully, these two hands are not all there are. Like an illusionist, a third hand appears, and we find that on this third hand exist those who not only believe that truth, goodness, and beauty exist, but believe these things are objective and transcendent realities.

So, while it may very well be the case that our own personal tastes and desires will cause us to disagree—even vehemently—on a favorite book, piece of music, movie, or food, the fact that we have taste at all is an indication that some sort of objective standards must exist.

Roger Scruton opened his own work on beauty by writing:

Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference: beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive it.[2]

At the heart of it all is a war of worldviews. If we examine the concept of beauty more closely, we quickly find that everyone has an idea of beauty and desires true beauty, but those opposed to Christ’s Kingdom will most adamantly oppose that which is truly beautiful. Consider, for example, the atheist who yearns for that beautiful piece of music, or a beautiful wife, or a beautiful view, or a beautiful life, yet rejects Jesus as their Lord and Savior (thereby negating and making meaningless all those desires they possess). This is little more than a dog biting the hand that feeds it. They reject that for which they truly long and desire.

The Eschatological Beauty and Hope of Christmas

A babe born is a beautiful thing. Regardless of where it occurs—be it a home, a hospital room, a castle, or a manger—new life is beautiful. But the most beautiful birth of all happened in Bethlehem, when God became man, the Word became flesh, and the Son of God dwelt among us. This is a reality of beauty that transcends our understanding but satisfies our deepest longings.

In our postmodern and liberalized age, the idea of transcendental realities seems to be simultaneously rejected and yet continually presupposed. I can no more make an argument against objective realities without quickly realizing that my argument depends on the concept of objective standards to disprove objectivity, thereby proving what I sought to disprove. And there’s the crux of the matter: God implanted a desire for beauty within us, Jesus is the only one who can grant us this desire for beauty, the nations desire Christ in this way, the earth groans with expectation for the beauty that Christ alone works in this way, and yet sinners reject Him.

This desire for beauty, however, continually points us to Christ. C.S. Lewis once pointed this out when he wrote:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.[3]

Lewis, of course, is correct. If we have a desire for something, it’s because that desire can be satisfied somewhere.

As best I can tell, every beautiful piece of literature, music, or art exists to either express this longing or to act as a type of time capsule, meant to mirror the beauty of God or some aspect of His creation that has been experienced. When our desire for beauty seems to be momentarily met (for it can only ever be a momentary satisfaction this side of eternity), our immediate inclination is to try to preserve the moment in time. We try to bottle such moments to both share with others and to drink from when our own wells seem to run dry.

The eschatological hope of Christmas, however, tells us that beauty has come, and His name is Jesus. He is the objective standard and expression of beauty. All He does is beautiful. He is Immanuel—God with us, always and forever. He saves us from our sins. He rules the nations with a rod of iron, shattering His enemies. When He returns, it will not be to find a defeated Church, but a victorious Church. The nations will have been Christianized, peace will have come, and Christ’s glory will have covered the earth as the waters cover the seas (Hab. 2:14). There is no greater beauty than this.

Though Christmas renews these expectations, these hopes prove true regardless of the time of year. As the hymn says, Christ is:

Israel’s strength and consolation,

hope of all the earth thou art;

dear desire of every nation,

joy of every longing heart.

 

[1] Charles Wesley, “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus,” 1744. https://hymnary.org/text/come_thou_long_expected_jesus_born_to

[2] Roger Scruton, Beauty: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Kindle Edition. Loc. 138 of 2764.

[3] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 136-37