Home to Glory

Source: Unknown

38 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS...

Angels from the realms of glory,

Wing your flight o’er all the earth.

Ye who sang creation’s story,

Now proclaim Messiah’s birth.

Come and worship. Come and worship.

Worship Christ, the newborn King.

James Montgomery, author of “Angels, from the Realms of Glory,” was a gentle man, but he didn’t shirk from criticizing the status quo if he thought there was a better way. In a gentle dig at popular hymn writers, he suggested they often started off with a good idea but wandered on from there until they lost sight of their original intention.

Montgomery, on the other hand, liked to find a powerful theme and stick with it. The idea that God would come to earth through Jesus Christ struck him as an awesome one, well worth rejoicing over. He left the theme for one stanza only, to tell what this miracle meant to humankind. Repentant sinners, he said, had been set free. Mercy had broken their chains.

An orphan boy who eventually became a newspaper owner, Montgomery found himself in chains more than once. His views on poverty, social conditions, and slavery earned him two spells of imprisonment in York Castle. Undaunted, he would go on to champion many causes that bettered the plight of the ordinary man and woman.

His earthly reward, for his reforms, his poetry, and his hymns, would eventually come in the form of a royal pension.

Asked which of his works would survive him, he replied in a way that clearly showed his priorities. “None, sir. Nothing except, perhaps, a few of my hymns.” “Angels, from the Realms of Glory” is still sung all across the English-speaking world, more than a century and a half after his death.

Growing up without a family may have brought Montgomery closer to the realms of charity. Spending his childhood with no place to call home may have brought him closer to the realms of eternity. The day after completing his four hundredth hymn, at age eighty-three, he went to his real home and his heavenly family.

The angels must have rejoiced in the realms of glory when James Montgomery arrived.

Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. PSALM 148:2–3

(From Silent Night: The Stories Behind 40 Beloved Christmas Carols, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission)

1. Angels, from the realms of glory,

Wing your flight o’er all the earth;

Ye who sang creation’s story,

Now proclaim Messiah’s birth.

Come and worship,

Come and worship,

Worship Christ, the newborn King!

2. Shepherds, in the fields abiding,

Watching o’er your flocks by night,

God with man is now residing;

Yonder shines the infant Light.

Come and worship,

Come and worship,

Worship Christ, the newborn King!

3. Sages, leave your contemplations;

Brighter visions beam afar;

Seek the great Desire of Nations;

Ye have seen his natal star.

Come and worship,

Come and worship,

Worship Christ, the newborn King!

4. Saints, before the altar bending,

Watching long in hope and fear,

Suddenly, the Lord descending,

In his temple shall appear.

Come and worship,

Come and worship,

Worship Christ, the newborn King!

DO YOU KNOW?

38 days in a calendar year equals to one month and 8 days, or to be more specific:

- 3,283,200 seconds

- 54,720 minutes

- 912 hours

- 5 weeks and 3 days

- 10.41% of 2019