Join us for our Advent Sermon Series, “Upon a Midnight Clear.” Beginning, November 30, 2025.
We will be using the theme “Upon a Midnight Clear” for the Advent season this year at FCC. Edmund H. Sears, a Unitarian minister in Wayland, Massachusetts, wrote the hymn “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” in 1849. It was published that year a few days after Christmas in the Boston Christian Register. While obviously a Christmas hymn due to its theme of the angels’ song, there is no mention at all of Christ or His birth about which the angels sang. It is a social gospel hymn.
The first and second stanzas (“It came upon the midnight clear” and “Still through the cloven skies they come”) describe the coming of the angels and their song. The third condemns war, and the fourth commiserates with those in bondage and trial. The fifth stanza (“For lo! the days are hastening on”) describes a future time of peace.
An overarching theme of this hymn is the contrast between the message “peace on earth, good will toward all” proclaimed by the host of angels at Christ’s birth (Luke 2:14) and the war and oppression that dominate the Earth. While this hymn was originally written as the Civil War loomed for the US, we need to hear this message of peace now more than ever. Plan on joining your church family this Advent to consider what it means to be a people who follow the Prince of Peace!
First Congregational Church of Tallmadge 