"Lo, He Comes"

Charles Wesley

If you asked me what was the second most unusual thing about Charles Wesley, the author of our Hymn of the Week, I’d say it was that he was the youngest in a family of 18 children. Great big families, I guess, are still to be found here and there. But who on earth now has written 6,500 hymns?

“Well,” you may answer, “quantity is one thing, and quality another.” Agreed! And here is the thing about the young Wesley. His hymns range from perfectly good to sublime. “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” — that’s his. “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” — that’s his. “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” — that’s his. And so is this, the mightiest of Advent hymns, “Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending.”

Now, you don’t get a Charles Wesley by mere chance, or by saying to yourself, “I’m going to write me some hymns today!” The soil has to be prepared, and the weather has to be right. Had there been no tradition of rollicking popular drama in England, going back two hundred years, we’d have had no Shakespeare. To get a Wesley, you need people so steeped in Scripture that the language and the images, the stories, the lessons, and the prophecies, come to their minds readily, even unbidden, and not one by one but in their mutual relationships. Then you need also people steeped in the traditions of English song and poetry, so that they can think in the popular meters as easily as an American boy can pick up a bat and something passing for a ball and swat it against the barn; it is second nature. Last, you need the people who will sing the hymns in a sacred service, because how can a poet compose a hymn unless he can imagine, in his heart and in his mind’s eye and ear, the men and women and children who will be singing it all together, in such a place — a country chapel, a parish church, a cathedral — and at such a time — Advent, for instance?

So we have “Lo, He Comes,” and let’s think of how much of Scripture is in Wesley’s mind. Saint Paul writes his friendliest letters to the Thessalonians, telling them to expect the same sort of tribulation he has suffered, and not to worry that some of their loved ones have already fallen asleep. “For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven,” he says, and the trumpets and the archangels will be with him, and the dead shall rise, and those who are alive “shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ.” That’s in Wesley’s mind. Saint John writes to the churches, “Behold, he comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also who pierced him,” and when they see him, the saints will rejoice in his wounds, but those who mocked him and rejected him will see the same wounds and will wail in their guilt. And Saint Jude says that he shall come “with thousands of his saints,” and all these are thinking of the words of Jesus himself, for the nations shall mourn, seeing “the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty.”

You might think that the coming of Jesus would strike the hearts of men with joy, but that all depends on whether they have been waiting for him, longing for him, as did the aged Simeon and Anna, or whether their attitude has been rather like that of the demons possessing the poor man in the cave, saying, “Why have you come to trouble us?” Think of the final line of Wesley’s hymn: “Thou shalt reign, and thou alone.” And now think of how many ways we find to say, “Well, Lord, you can have that piece of property over there, but my heart is my own,” or, if not the whole heart, at least a little corner of it. But, says Jesus, as he echoes and confirms the greatest of all commandments, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and strength.” We don’t get to set up our own petty kingdoms over against God’s. And if we fail in our love, as we surely shall, we have hope in God’s forgiveness, and in the love of Christ, that will make up for us what we lack, and build up in us what we have failed to build.

Now, if somebody protests that that isn’t fair, that we should have our nooks of self-will, Wesley reminds us that God’s kingship is the only truly liberating power in all the world. For Christ was slain “for our salvation,” to make us whole, entire, sound in soul and body. The saints “swell the triumph of his train,” not as captives but as men set free from captivity. There’s a triumph for you! A Roman general of old might be granted a triumph through the city, and that meant, literally, a long parade through an arch especially constructed in his honor, and in parade he would lead the plunder and the slaves and the hostages he had taken: captivity. But Christ has “led captivity captive,” as Saint Paul says — it’s captivity itself that is taken prisoner, while those who were enslaved or oppressed by sin, their own sins or those of others, are granted the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

And that is why we hear with gladness the promise of Jesus: “Surely, I come quickly.” Come, Lord Jesus!

Lo! he comes, with clouds descending,
Once for our salvation slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending
Swell the triumph of his train:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Christ, the Lord, returns to reign.

2 Every eye shall now behold him,
Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold him,
Pierced, and nailed him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing
Shall the true Messiah see.

3 Those dear tokens of his passion
Still his dazzling body bears,
Cause of endless exultation
To his ransomed worshipers:
With what rapture, with what rapture,
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

4 Yea, Amen! let all adore thee,
High on thine eternal throne:
Savior, take the power and glory;
Claim the kingdoms for thine own:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou shalt reign, and Thou alone!

Amen.