Preached at Wesleyanna United Methodist Church, Sylva, NC, December 14, 2025

Scripture: Luke 1:46-55

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices. 

Christina Rossetti sat at her home. This English poet of moderate fame had published many poems before in her life, mostly focused on things that would gain readership. But now, having been diagnosed with Graves Disease and having suffered a near-fatal heart attack, she found herself convalescing in a dark season of life; a season that gave rise to new poetry.  

As she struggled with her health, it’s understandable that the first words to her poem would be, “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan. Earth stood hard as iron. Water like a stone.” She paints a stark picture of the bleakness of the middle of winter. 

Rossetti wrote during the Advent season to process her emotions after her diagnosis; to come to grips with her new reality. Friends encouraged her to turn to her favorite medium, poetry, as a means of coping. And as she writes during that Advent season, she imagines that same midwinter scene surrounding the birth of Jesus. In the midst of the cold and hardness of winter, the warmth and gentleness of a savior is born. In the harshness of the season, God’s graciousness comes into being. 

Her study in contrasts is her way of saying, “Come, thou long expected Jesus!”

It may sound odd to make such a request when Jesus has come into the world already. And yet, there’s power in asking Jesus to come again, for I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need a fresh outpouring of Christ in my life, especially when navigating suffering. In her midwinter season, Rossetti needed that as well. 

That prayer, “come, thou long expected Jesus,” gets full voice in Charles Wesley’s hymn of the same name. Wesley declares:

Come, thou long expected Jesus,

born to set thy people free;

from our fears and sins release us,

let us find our rest in thee.

Sometimes, we all need to experience a fresh outpouring of just what Wesley describes: to be set free, to find release from our fears and sins, and our rest in thee. That’s especially true in the midwinter seasons of life, as Rossetti poetically declares. Sometimes, we all need:

“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.” 

Although, we must admit such sentiment was not Mary’s first reaction to the news of Jesus in her womb. Like Zechariah, she doubts when the angel gives her the news of her role in bringing Jesus into the world. Unlike Zechariah, she is not made mute but told to go visit her cousin, Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife. 

We can imagine Mary, the angel having left, feeling bewildered and overcome. Her? An unwed teenager? The mother of the savior of the world? It would be scandalous. Imagine today finding out about an unwed teen mother you personally know. Now imagine yourself believing her when she tells you she’s carrying the savior of the world through an immaculate conception. It’s hard to believe now and it was unbelievable back then.

Most of all to Mary. How in the world is this to happen? But she follows the angel’s command and travels to see Elizabeth. There, through Elizabeth, she finds all she needs. She gains right and true perspective. She can see what God is doing and she can now grasp it, understand it, and even sing it. 

And so, because of her visit to Elizabeth, she’s able to declare in her song, The Magnificat, that God’s mercy is coming afresh and anew, that God will scatter the proud, remove the lofty from their thrones, and lift up the lowly. God will fill the hungry and keep promises of old. Above all, God will deliver the people from what ails them. God will deliver them from their midwinter season: their cold, harsh, and hard time in history. 

God will deliver. God will bless. 

And Mary realizes all this through visiting with Elizabeth. From that friendship with her cousin, she is able to do what she could not before; the same thing Rossetti says in her poem; something she found the strength to do because of the encouragement of her friends:

She can give God what she has; give God her heart. 

“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”

Edmund Sears was a failed priest. At least, he thought he was, as he struggled through a midwinter season in his life. He’d had what we United Methodists would call a large appointment; a large church to pastor. But, it had broken him. Details of why it had broken him are unclear, but he returned to his Wayland, Massachusetts home, having broken down. Sears knew a cold, harsh, dark midwinter season in his life as he wrestled with failure, experiencing a season of suffering.

And in his life, feeling crushed and carrying a heavy load, he penned these words:

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow,

Look now! for glad and golden hours

come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road,

And hear the angels sing!

Somehow, even while broken and overcome, he could look and see that God was still working, God was still moving, and God would deliver him; from his fears and sins Christ would release him, and he would find his rest in thee. Somehow, he knew, just knew, that God would come swiftly on the wing, bringing those glad and golden hours. And so he could rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing. He once again felt God in his heart. He was free, filled with joy. 

His carol, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, one he wrote after the encouragement of a friend, demonstrates what Rossetti and Mary knew: that especially in the midwinter seasons of life, when we give God our hearts, we discover:

A thrill of hope, our weary world rejoices. 

John Sullivan Dwight found himself in need of a thrill of hope. Sitting in church in France one day in the 1850s, he felt dispirited. He was visiting from America, where he worked hard for the abolitionist movement to end slavery. But at the moment of his visit to France, his home country seemed ready to erupt into war. It was not what he hoped for. He was in his own midwinter season of life, his form bending low under the crushing load of what seemed to be a failed movement to end slavery.

But then, as he sits in church pondering the state of things, a magisterial song breaks out. He hears the words: “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,” and his weary soul rejoiced. As he traveled home, he took the song with him, translating it into English.

When he arrived back in America, he ran straight to his abolitionist friends to share the song he’d learned, but not just the words and music he had learned. He had added a new verse, writing these lines:

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is Love and his gospel is Peace;

Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother,

And in his name all oppression shall cease,

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we;

Let all within us praise his Holy name!

O Holy Night, with this additional verse, became an instant hit throughout churches in the northern United States. Abolitionists across the country found inspiration in the new verse. Dwight and his friends knew that the slave was their brother, just as we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and that through their efforts, God would break chains and in his name all oppression would cease. They found encouragement and once again gave God their hearts. 

For them, as they gave God their hearts, it was indeed a thrill of hope. Their weary world rejoiced.

We are truly blessed by these Christmas Carols. And not just by the carols themselves, but by knowing the backstory. We see how out of life’s trials, life’s crushing loads, life’s oppression, life’s dismay and decay, indeed out of the midwinter seasons of life, Christ was born to be our friend in all our trials. Then ever, ever, praise we, because we know that God will deliver us. Mary could see it, too. She saw that, even through her, God would deliver. 

In all these stories, for each person to discover that Christ releases us from our fears and sins, finding our rest in thee, all it took to find a thrill of hope so their midwinter season of life could rejoice, was to give God their heart, and some friendship along the way.

Sometimes, we all need a fresh outpouring of Christ into our hearts. Sometimes, our prayer is indeed, “come, thou long expected Jesus!” And when we’re in that kind of midwinter season; when we feel our forms bending low, with painful steps and slow, the task before us is to look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing. In those seasons of life, we find the vision we need to see those glad and golden hours on the wing by walking the journey of life with a friend. 

When Sears wrote It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, a friend had encouraged him to write to help find a sense of peace and joy in his brokenness. When Rossetti penned In the Bleak Midwinter, she was encouraged by friends. When Dwight brought home O Holy Night, adding his famous verse, he was encouraged by his abolitionist friends. And when Mary sang her song of praise, The Magnificat, she was encouraged by her friend and cousin, Elizabeth. 

Through the companionship of their friends, they could see the world through fresh eyes, discovering where God was delivering, providing, and upholding. Indeed, they experienced a thrill of hope and they, in their weary worlds, rejoiced, because they had found through their friendships that despite their present circumstances, God is Emmanuel; God with us. And then, as Rossetti says, they could give God their hearts, no matter how poor their state. 

Friendship, along the toiling way, helps us find Christ in our midst. Then, we can give God our hearts. Then we discover that thrill of hope, and our weary world rejoices.

Consider Mary, who carried God in her womb. She needed her eyes opened to see beyond the overwhelm and dismay of the angel’s pronouncement. She needed to see beyond her fear and doubt. It’s easy to think of Mary as this stoic, heroic even, exemplar of the faith and forget that, at first, she was a frightened teenage girl suddenly thrust into a role she did not ask for, suffering under this news. She found the strength she needed, and gained sight of what God was doing in her life, because of her friend. And with that companionship, she was able to give God her heart.

And that’s just the point this morning: to reveal the heart of God and help others give God their heart, one of the best things we can be is a friend.

When we’re in the midwinter seasons of life, praying, “Come, thou long expected Jesus…set me free,” facing sufferings of any kind in body, mind, or spirit, one of the best ways to find Christ in the midst of our suffering is through friendship. We must be brave and bold enough to let others know that we’re suffering, to reach out for friends, just like Rossetti, Sears, Dwight, and most especially Mary. We must be willing to show that our lives aren’t perfect, for none of ours are. Sometimes, we all need a fresh outpouring of Christ in our lives, and friendship is a powerful way to bring that fresh outpouring of Christ to someone who’s facing a midwinter season of life. It requires vulnerability, and vulnerability is not easy, but it’s worth it, for Christ enters our vulnerability with the love, hope, peace, and joy we celebrate this season.

We can be a friend ourselves by being available to others who are carrying a crushing load. We can notice when others seem down and offer to listen, to be present. When we’re present with someone’s suffering, when we’re present beneath their crushing load, their forms bending low, we send a powerful message of how much we care. Our presence with the suffering of others brings Christ to our friend who’s suffering, and that presence all by itself, declares, “look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing! Oh rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.” We bring Christ with us when we choose to meet a friend in their vulnerability.

We can be a friend, and in doing so, we are a tremendous blessing to those facing a midwinter season of life. We don’t have to have the right words, we don’t have to know what to say, except to say that we’re there and we’re willing to listen and willing to share the burden. That’s all. But that’s powerful. 

Because when we’re such a friend as this, we bring Christ. Our friends may be saying, “come, thou long expected Jesus, from my fears and sins release me, let me find my rest in thee;” and when we decide to be a friend, we say back to them, “look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing,” “for Christ in all our trials was born to be our friend.”

In our friendship, in choosing to be a friend, we bring a thrill of hope so that our friend’s weary world can rejoice.

Without friendship like this, the Christmas carol authors we’ve noted this morning would never have penned their words, words that out of their suffering lift up our souls. Words that speak directly to the midwinter seasons of life. When we are a friend to others, no matter how much we are suffering, we bring Christ to that friendship. And when they meet us there, in the land of suffering, together we experience the sacrificial love and care of our savior, one who, “in all our trials, was born to be our friend.” 

Friendship, as common as it sounds, makes such a huge difference. We bring Christ to each other when we share in each other’s crushing loads. We bring hope and deliverance from what ails us, what makes us know a weary world. Friendship brings a thrill of hope to the midwinter seasons of life because friendship, true friendship, brings Christ to life’s crushing loads.

Whether you’re experiencing a midwinter season of life this morning, or know someone who is, be a friend. Together, you will experience the friendship of Christ. And together, you both will know a thrill of hope, for your weary worlds will rejoice.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen.