Today's cross referenced hymn is BPW 315 "Joy to the World" an Isaac Watts classic, but with words that can bewilder a 21st century reader.  Even though some updating has been done, we still have, at the end of verse 2:

while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

repeat the sounding joy

That should give any thoughtful singer pause... floods repeating joy...?  Floods, surely are destructive, sweeping away joy... what does this hymn mean?

Etymology, reveals that 'flood' can mean 'flow', so I guess Watts really means rivers, but that would be two syllables and mess up the metre of his hymn.

I recall singing the Kendrick hymn "Shine, Jesus, shine" when I stood with 200 other "women vicars"+ two women rabbis at the end of Downing Street for the Make Poverty History thing... it was still in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami... how could we sing "flow, river, flow, flood the nations..." - even with grace and mercy?  Floods destroy hope, not bring it. 

Etymologically, Kendrick could have actually said "flood, flood, flood, flood the nations..."

Of course we understand the meataphor, of course we are expressing a desire for the goodness of God to fill the whole of creation... but the language is risky, and unthinking singing can be dangerous.

Perhaps then, we recognise the power of joy, grace, mercy within the flood, within the overwhelming horror, and the transformative potential it brings.

Perhaps, too, we might reword the hymn thus:

Rivers and fields, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy...

It's hard to beat a good flashmob - and this was one of the first I saw, back in the day...

Today has been our Sunday School nativity - as always wonderful fun - followed by the Sunday School party and now I'm taking a quick break before the evening communion service.

BPW's cross sectional index gives us number 311, "Hills of the north, rejoice", a hymn that takes me back to my teens, sitting in as we did in the back row of the URC.  Last year I used it for our candle lighting, this year it hasn't featured at all, so I'm happy to have the opporunity to share it today.  I don't have the spare energy needed to offer any reflections, so I hope you will simply enjoy the richness of its global reach...

In Jesus all shall find their rest,

In him the universe be blessed

Back in the 1980s I heard of a church that was in the ground floor of a multi-storey building.  Allegedly one Sunday moring as they sang "How lovely on the mountains... our God reigns" water began to pour through the ceiling... it may be apocryphal, but it led to it being dubbbed the umbrella hymn.

And it is one of those listed in the additional hymns for Advent list in BPW.  Not always the most singable lyrics - who can forget having to sing "on his shoulders, on his shoul-oul-oul-oul-ders, on his shoul-oulders he bore our shame"?

BPW has two versions - the more singable four verse one (without the shoulders) and the longer, orignal version (with added shoulders warbles)

It was a hymn of its time, I think, and certainly for me has only positive associations (including indoor rain and warbly shoulders).  A valiant attempt to make a hymn of part of Isaiah 52, and really more for Passiontide than Advent, it is nonetheless worth another airing (this version shoulder of lamb not included!!)

This year's offering under the banner "Christmas Starts with Christ" is dividing opinion among those are are already comitted followers of Jesus aka Christians.

Some are delighted to see it taking on the big retailers and playing them at their own game whilst others are disappointed that it is too white middle class and lacking in prophetic edge.

See what you think:

That God can speak through this, I have no doubt - but I sense God may speak through other adverts also.

I like the baby's chuckle at the end - this reminder that Jesus was a real baby, not a doll or a no-crying-he-makes lines in a song.

I am amused that the 'church' is using a Frankie Goes to Hollywood tune whilst Sainsbury's are using an old redemption hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"

I'd have prefered a less opulent beginning and a more authentically middle-eastern looking Mary & Joseph in a less clinical stable... and perhaps that's the nub of my disquiet... I'm not entirely sure what this says to the poor and marginalised people for whom Jesus clearly had huge concern.

Perhaps the key is who the advert is aimed at, and how they will recieve it, not how I or any other Christian insider feel about it.  If it sparks a new or renewed interest in Jesus in the heart or mind of one person, then it's done its job.

BPW 179 "Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown" has survived the worst excesses of the, often unhelpful, re-working to modern English that has resulted in odd variants of many better known carols.

Strictly, only the first two verses relate to Christmas, but the recurrent theme of Jesus being unwelcome, unaccepted and even homeless carries through the rest of the hymn, which works it's way, very swiftly, through his entire ministry.

No room to be born, nowhere permanent to live during his earthly ministry, abandoned at calvary...

This hymn is explicitly a personal response to the despised and rejected Jesus - there IS space in MY heart for you.

Is there, though? Or are we so cynical and world weary that the story no longer moves us?

And, I wonder, just how much room to I allow Jesus to occupy in my heart?  Who and what is jostling for my love, my embrace?  And, if Jesus comes to us in other people, who is it that I rejct, and in so-doing reject him?

Hmmm. I love this song, but today it feels very challenging!

The electric keyboard accompaniment on this recording is not the greatest thing to listen to, but the words surely transcend that: