Of course every year I hear the hymn “O, Holy Night” over and over again on the radio and in church just like everyone else. It has become so familiar that it’s just like any other song or rhyme I learned as a child and can recite at any moment’s notice.
However this year, for possibly the first time, which is sad to say, I heard the words for their meaning and not just as rote memory. Ever since there has been one line that I cannot get out of my head. I replay this one line over and over, and during the past month it has become one with such sweet, precious, profound meaning for me.
‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
When Jesus appeared the soul felt its worth! Wow! I’ve thought about the people who lived during the time right before and at Jesus’s birth, and how they “pined”for him as the hymn says. There is no describing how they must have felt as they waited and prayed for the promise that God had given them that their Savior would come. I am sure that many times they questioned whether he really would come and even questioned whether they were worthy of a Savior coming.
And then He came. And their souls felt their worth. They knew they were worthy.
Today, just like then, the only thing that every soul wants is to feel worth. In my desperate efforts to gain worth from all that’s around me, this simple line of this old Christmas hymn has reminded me of the only place I will find authentic worth, a worth that does not waver based on my actions, emotions, moods, or thoughts or based on anybody else, but a worth that is solid, never changing, and unconditional.
That is with Jesus. Jesus has come. He has come to earth. He has come to be live in me. And now I can feel my worth. This hymn has been a blessed reminder of God’s proof to me of how much He loved me and every soul He created.
“O Holy Night”
O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, ‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
This post is from the archives originally published on 12/24/09.
Photo Credit: Creative Commons
