Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

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.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Charles Wesley

The centrality of Jesus in the Christian hope is so obvious that it is barely worth restating in words and deeds.  It is for this very reason that we need to assert it anew, each day, each week, each year – if we don’t, if we allow our hearts and minds to settle for what we think is most obvious and then ‘move on’ to less obvious things then we will become easily blinded to that which is most important.

This two verse hymn from Wesley is most often sung at Christmas. The last two lines speak powerfully of what is most important at the heart of Christian hope.  Jesus’ merit – His perfection in every way, but ultimately as the sinless sacrifice atoning for sin – is what grants us a saving relationship with God.

I love the profundity and simplicity of these two verses from Wesley.  I love that they make it possible to proclaim simply the depth of our hope.  They make it clear that our hope rests not on ourselves, not in our respectability or contemporaneous appeal, not in our moral fibre or our social standing. We do not hope in ourselves, our hope is in Jesus.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it — the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:23-26