IDEA: Behind our common carols can lie uncommon theology.
“Angels, from the realms of glory”
PURPOSE: To help listeners sing the carols with meaning.
Do you use a hymnbook at your church? Many congregations today flash the words of hymns and choruses up on the wall. There are certain advantages to that, I suppose, because heads aren’t turned down; they’re turned up. But there are some disadvantages as well.
One disadvantage is that you don’t look at the names at the top of the page of the hymn. I often look at those names and the birthdate and deathdate next to it, and I wonder who the writer is. I read, for example, a name like Charles Wesley. Charles Wesley was a brother of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church. Both brothers lived back in the 18th century. Yet here we are in the 21st century, still singing their hymns.
If you happened to look at the Christmas hymn, “Angels, from the realms of glory,” you would see that it was written by a man named James Montgomery. He was born in 1771 and died in 1854. That’s what it says next to his name in the hymnbook I have. But who was he? What’s his story? A hymnbook doesn’t tell you that.
James Montgomery was born in Scotland and his father, John, was an Irish Moravian missionary. His parents were called to do evangelistic work in the West Indies. Back in the 18th century, the West Indies were a long way from Scotland. It was a dangerous journey to an unfamiliar place. His parents, therefore, felt it best to send their son, James, to a Moravian community in County Antrim, Ireland. When he was 7 years old, he was sent to a seminary in England. But when he was 12, his parents whom he hardly knew, died on the mission field. Perhaps it was because his parents lived far away and died when he was still young that Montgomery wasn’t very interested in going to school. He flunked out of seminary. He became an assistant to a baker, but that didn’t last long. By the time he was 20, the young man was little more than a vagabond, moving from job to job. Often he was unemployed and homeless for weeks at a time.
James Montgomery’s only interest was in writing. He didn’t have much money, but what he had he invested in pencils and paper. He spent a great deal of time composing poetry on everything from his loneliness to his faith. No publisher was particularly interested in his work, but the editor of a radical newspaper saw something in James Montgomery’s talent. For the next two years, James got paid to do what he most loved to do – write stories.
He also learned up close and personal about the hardships of being an Irishman under English rule. At the age of 23 when the newspaper’s owner was run out of town for writing radical editorials about freedom for the Irish, young James took over the newspaper. He changed the name of the paper to the Sheffield Iris, but he didn’t change anything about the stance of the paper. He was determined to carry on a war with the sharp edge of his pen to gain Ireland’s freedom from Great Britain.
Something else happened about that time. He also became an active leader in the abolitionist movement. Slavery was widespread and legal, and James Montgomery would throw himself into the battle to set the slaves free. Twice he landed in prison because of articles he wrote. Yet each time when he was released, he returned to the newspaper and continued fighting his printed war for freedom – freedom from Great Britain for the Irish and freedom for the slaves.
Montgomery not only waged a crusade against English rule and slavery, but he began to read his Bible intensely. He wanted to understand what motivated his parents to give their lives in another part of the world, and ultimately to pay with their lives for their dedication. His study of the Scripture and his rebellious zeal came together and launched the young man on a new mission. One of the first hints of this change was revealed on Christmas Eve in 1816.
Irishmen hated all things British. They would read the newspaper each day, hoping to find some article by James Montgomery that would inspire more and more people to sign up for their revolution. Undoubtedly the local government which also read the paper wanted to nail the editor, James Montgomery, who was a thorn in their side. Yet on December 24, 1816, readers of the newspaper discovered a different stance from the passionate editor. On that day his editorial didn’t divide Irish from English, but rather reached out to bring everyone who read his newspaper together. Written in the same poetic verse that Montgomery had used during his aimless wanderings as a young man, the poem that he wrote would eventually become the carol, “Angels, From the Realms of Glory.” It told the story of angels proclaiming the birth of the Savior for all people – Irish and English, poor and rich, Anglican and Moravian. In a strange twist of life, his hymn, which is both beautiful and biblically sound, touched more lives for Christ than his parents did in all their years of missionary work.
But if you read between the lines, there is also a bit of social commentary in the poem. One verse which has been deleted from the carol spoke of the society that needed to right some wrongs. That lost stanza also reveals James Montgomery’s journey in finding meaning and purpose in his own life. Those words that are no longer part of the carol are
"Sinners, wrung with true repentance, Doomed for guilt to endless pains, Justice now revokes the sentence, Mercy calls you, 'Break the chain.' "
The chain could refer to the chains of slaves or to the burden of the Irish, but it also spoke in a very deep way of the chains that Jesus Christ has broken to free us from the penalty of our sin.
As Montgomery would soon find out, his poem would break chains. The impact of his hymn came to revolutionize music and thinking in the English church that was captive to its past.
Listen to the words of James Montgomery’s hymn, one of the most beautiful ever written.