{"id":33535,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"hark-herald-angels","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/","title":{"rendered":"Hark! the Herald Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18863.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">We&#8217;re thinking together on these Sundays of Advent of the\nsymphony of our salvation, and this morning we come to the third movement of\nthat symphony, which is entitled &#8220;Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.&#8221; It\nis scored for angelic choir and for us. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Christianity is unique among the religions of the world for a\nvariety of reasons. One of the most important of these is that we are a singing\nfaith. Now, our Christmas tree stands in its place of honor, but trees have\nbeen objects of worship since the days of the Druids and the Canaanites. And\nthe candles sparkle cheeringly in the aisle and here in the Advent wreath. But\ncandles and fire have been a part of worship, even to this day, for the Parsees\nof India and the primitive animists of Africa. There is one thing, however,\nthat is part of our worship that is not part of the worship of any other major\nfaith on earth. That is singing. Christianity is the one faith that puts a song\nin your heart. Confucianism has no chorales. Shintoism has no songs. Islam has\nno glorias. Atheism has no anthems. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now, it is good that singing is a part of our faith, because\nmusic, more than any other thing we produce from within us, is an expression of\nour own hearts. You listen to the singing of a man like Paul Robeson or a woman\nlike Leontyne Price; let them sing the black spirituals, and you will know\nimmediately in listening to them something of the faith and the feeling of the\nhistory of black people in this country. Listen to a march by John Philip\nSousa, or a patriotic song written by Irving Berlin, and almost immediately you\nwill have a sense for that patriotism that is a part of so many Americans.\nListen to a love song, and you will hear whispers of intimacy that you will not\nencounter elsewhere. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Some of you have noticed, I am sure, that after you have lost a\nloved one to death, one of the hardest things for you to do is to come back to\nchurch. And when you do get back to church, the hardest part of the worship\nservice is when the congregation sings. The reason for that is, you see, that a\nsong comes from the heart, and your heart is broken. When you begin to sing or\nwhen you hear other people sing, that truth comes very powerfully to the fore.\nSinging, then, is a part of our worship and an expression of our soul. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">At Christmastime, of course, we always sing the songs of\nBethlehem. Now, Madison Avenue has tried to take them away from us. Every store\nyou enter has them being blasted over loudspeaker systems, and the chambers of\ncommerce in some towns have them blaring out on the streets so that even the\nsidewalks soak up the sound. Then you go to a Rotary meeting or a Kiwanis\nmeeting or a Lions meeting, and you hear the raucous rendering of carols. Even\nin some saloons, you&#8217;ll hear some beery baritone burp Christmas songs. But no\nmatter how hard these people try, they cannot take the songs of Christmas away\nfrom us. The reason is this: those songs belong to the praise of Jesus Christ.\nIt is those given over to Jesus Christ, who love him and seek to serve him, who\nown those songs and who can sing those songs in a way that no one else can\nequal. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The first Christmas carol was sung by angels.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">This morning, as we come to the third movement in our symphony\nof salvation, we come to the first Christmas carol. It was the song sung by the\nangels over those shepherds&#8217; fields outside Bethlehem: &#8220;Glory be to God in\nthe highest heaven, and on earth peace to those with whom he is pleased.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There are those who don&#8217;t believe in angels. That&#8217;s all right;\nthere&#8217;s nothing that says a person has to believe in angels in order to be a\nChristian. I myself believe in angels, and I think the day will come when you\nbelieve in them, too. The Bible mentions angels more than 300 times, and that&#8217;s\ngood enough for me. Now, I want to make clear that I don&#8217;t believe in angels\nthe way most people picture them. They&#8217;re not chubby little cherubs going\naround with no clothes on. And they&#8217;re not great majestic creatures with vast\nwings. This is not what the Scriptures say of angels. As a matter of fact, the\nScriptures say that there are eight different kinds of angels, and that these\nangels are spiritual beings, not material, physical beings such as we are. It&#8217;s\nvery important to notice this, you see, because it was their nature as\nspiritual beings that gave them the prerogative to sing there at that first\nChristmas. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The angels (and all other spiritual beings) have been around a\nlot longer than we have. If you look at Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, the\nScripture reads, &#8220;In the beginning God created the heavens and the\nearth.&#8221; The heavens there does not refer to the firmament, the sky; it\ndoes not refer to planets and stars and comets, because all of those things are\nmentioned as being made on later days of that first week. No, the heaven that\nwas referred to there is the spiritual realm, that place where God is in all of\nhis glory and that place that is populated only by spiritual beings. We say the\nsame thing when we say the Lord&#8217;s Prayer. We pray, &#8220;Thy will be done on\nearth as it is in heaven.&#8221; We don&#8217;t mean &#8220;as it is among the\nstars&#8221; or &#8220;as it is somewhere out on the wispy Milky Way.&#8221; We\nmean, &#8220;May God&#8217;s will be done here, just as it&#8217;s done in the kingdom of\nheaven, which is outside of time, altogether eternal and perfect in every\nway.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A few moments ago we recited the words of the Nicene Creed:\n&#8220;I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of\nall things visible and invisible.&#8221; Visible refers to this earth, the\nmaterial, us. But the invisible realm is the realm where the spiritual\ncreatures are, and among those creatures are angels. They do not have material\nexistence, but spiritual existence. And that&#8217;s very important, because you\nnotice that the carol begins, &#8220;Glory be to God in the highest&#8221; in the\nhighest heaven and we&#8217;re not there. The shepherds were not there in the highest\nheavens, either. Only the angels were there. Only the angels could sing those\nfirst glories to God. They&#8217;re not given to us, except to echo. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It&#8217;s important that we hold on to this fact: We are created\nbeings, but they are glorified, spiritual beings. Angels, archangels, seraphim,\nand &#8216;re the ones that can praise God in the highest heaven. And\nbecause they have been there since before all physical things came into\nexistence, that means they have known God&#8217;s Son from the very beginning. In all\nthose prodigious ages before even this planet was created, they knew the only\nbegotten Son of God. They saw him in all of his power and in all of his glory,\nand they knew the promise that one day he would come here. While our ancestors\nwere struggling up through prehistoric times, while the beauties of Egypt were\nbeing created, while the songs of expectancy so much a part of the history of\nIsrael were being sung, when the adder of oriental mysticism was taken by the\nGreeks and turned into the perfection of Greek wisdom during all that time, the\nspiritual creatures, the angels, beheld Christ in the glories of heaven. But\nthen, at long last, there came that moment when the Infinite became definite,\nwhen Christ left heaven and came to earth. Since they had seen him from the\nvery beginning, can you imagine the joy and wonderment and amazement that must\nhave been theirs when they saw the Holy Spirit swoop down upon that little town\nin Israel of old, that little place called Bethlehem, and there with a stable,\nand in a stall, and with straw, that glorious Son became flesh? That&#8217;s the\nreason those angels could sing, &#8220;Glory to God in the highest heaven.&#8221;\nThey saw it all from the very beginning, and I mean from the very\nbeginning. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The angels sang of peace on earth and God with us. <\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The message they sing, of course, is about peace on earth, that\nthe God of the galaxies has come to be with us. Occasionally I have people tell\nme that they rejoice in seeing God in nature. That&#8217;s good. But I will confess\nto you that I&#8217;m not much impressed by that kind of testimony. I mean, can\nanyone who can look at the colors in a peacock&#8217;s tail or the splendor of\nBeethoven&#8217;s symphonies, or contemplate the work of the hands of Michelangelo,\nwho can see perfect truth jutting into our world in the purity of a Parthenon\nor a Taj Mahal or the Lincoln Memorial, who can see those things of\nmagnificence and splendor and beauty call them nothing more than accidental\nbubbles on this cosmic mud pie we&#8217;re riding through space? Anyone who says they\nsee God in those things, well, I think that&#8217;s natural. It would take an immense\namount of gullibility rather than good sense not to see that. So I&#8217;m not too\nimpressed when someone says he or she sees God in nature. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But when people say to me they have experienced and seen God in\nthe sanctity of their own hearts, when they talk about experiencing him not\njust as he&#8217;s evidenced in the stars but as he&#8217;s evidenced in their own souls,\nwell, that&#8217;s the kind of person I know has been to Bethlehem. They&#8217;ve heard the\nsong about peace on earth. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It&#8217;s escaped us for a long time, of course. I&#8217;ve been told that\nthere are places in Europe where you can sink a spade into the earth, and in\njust two or three spadefuls of earth, you can dig up prehistoric artifacts and\nalso bits of metal from much more modern times. In one spadeful of earth you\nmight come up with a flint fist hatchet, which was used in prehistoric times to\ncrush the skull of an enemy, and in that same bunch of earth, you will also\nfind a bit of shrapnel from some shell fired during the Second World War.\nCrushing the skull in the one instance, blowing a person to bits in the other that\nis a kind of parable of the history of humankind, isn&#8217;t it? War after war after\nwar. The absence of peace. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Why? Well, if you ask most people why there has been no peace,\nthey&#8217;ll say it&#8217;s the other fellow&#8217;s fault. A few years ago Ann Landers wrote a\ncolumn in which she tried to depict what the earth would be like after a\nnuclear war. And she asked all of her readers to clip the article and to send\nit to the White House. The President wrote her a letter about two weeks later\nin which he acknowledged that he had received over two hundred clippings. But\nthen he went on to suggest, &#8220;I think you sent them to the wrong place.\nThey should have been sent to the Kremlin.&#8221; The problem is with those\nother guys. That&#8217;s always the problem\nwith peace, isn&#8217;t it? <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But you see, when a soul has been at Bethlehem, when a soul has\nseen the sacrifice in the love of God, when a soul has experienced the grace\nand the peace that come only from God, that kind of soul begins to become an\nagent of peace not a peaceful person only, but a peacemaking and peaceful\nperson. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There was a time during the most horrible persecutions of the\nJews by the Nazis in Poland that an old Jewish cemetery keeper came into the\ncemetery one morning and found that during the night a woman had crept into an\nopen grave and there given birth to a son. And she had died. The cemetery\nkeeper found this child, and he thought to himself and told others, &#8220;This\nmust be the Messiah, for only the Messiah could choose to be born in a\ngrave.&#8221; Well, it wasn&#8217;t the Messiah; the child died before noon of that\nday. But the truth of which that cemetery keeper spoke is absolutely accurate.\nOnly the Messiah of God could choose to be born in a grave. Only a God who\nloves as our God loves could come into the midst of all the pain of life and\ndeath and bring his grace. The message of Christmas is that God is with us.\nThat&#8217;s written in meteors, yes, but it&#8217;s personalized at Christmas: Love so\ngreat that nothing can eclipse it. A love that says that God is with us in the\nmidst of our heartbreaks, and that he&#8217;s with us in our grief, and that he&#8217;s\nwith us in our loneliness and our fear. That he stands beside us when we try to\nstumble our way through a misshapen marriage. That he&#8217;s with us when we look\ninto the cold hatred of an enemy&#8217;s eyes. The song says, you see, that God is\nwith us by the gravesides of all of our hopes and dreams when they come to\nnaught. And the reason he is with us is to teach us and to show us and to give\nto us the way to peace, which is the way of love. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Someone comes to me and says that she has learned that lesson,\nthat you make peace by being yourself an agent of God&#8217;s love, filled with\npeace. When someone comes and tells me that, I know that that woman has been to\nBethlehem. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The angels sang of peace among &#8220;those with whom he is\n.&#8221;<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Of course, not all those who have been to Bethlehem get the\nmessage. Notice how the carol concludes: &#8220;Glory be to God in the highest\nheavens, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.&#8221; Or, as\nit is sometimes translated, &#8220;among those of good will.&#8221; The Bible&#8217;s\nright up front when it says that most people who heard the song didn&#8217;t pay much\nattention to it. John notes that &#8220;the world knew Christ not,&#8221; that\n&#8220;he came to his home, and to his own people, but they received him\nnot.&#8221; Matthew talks about a star but notes that only a few people followed\nit. Luke tells us about this song of the angels, but there&#8217;s no evidence that a\ngreat number of people heard it or responded to it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">We&#8217;ve all experienced that, haven&#8217;t we? We know that unless\nyou&#8217;re a veritable Scrooge, you feel something different at Christmas. There&#8217;s\na strange aura about. There is a good spirit so that even the most sour\nsometimes smile. And it will all climax on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. But\nthen, for the majority of people, it won&#8217;t last. It will tarnish and disappear.\nThey&#8217;ll read about the deaths on the highways, or there will be arguments in\nthe very best families, and after Christmas dinner there will be all those\ndirty dishes to do. And for some of those people, you see, Christmas will go\ndown the drain just like that dirty dishwater does. They acknowledge the fact\nthat somehow they&#8217;ve been moved at this season, but it&#8217;ll all be gone very\nfast, and they&#8217;ll pack it away with their tree lights, somewhere up in the\nattic or perhaps down in the basement. But for those who are of good will, for those with whom God is\npleased, for those who hear God and obey God, for those who welcome the Christ Child\ninto their lives, Christmas is forever. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Did you ever read Bret Harte&#8217;s story <em>The Luck of Roaring Camp<\/em>?\nRoaring Camp was supposed to be, according to the story, the meanest, toughest\nmining town in the West. There were murders and  was a terrible place\ninhabited entirely by men, except for one woman who tried to serve them all.\nHer name was Cherokee Sal. She died while giving birth to a baby. Well, the men\ntook the baby, and they put her in a box with some old rags under her. When\nthey looked at her, they decided that didn&#8217;t look right, so they sent one of\nthe men 80 miles away to buy a rosewood cradle. He brought it back, and they\nput the rags and the baby in the rosewood cradle. And the rags didn&#8217;t look\nright there. So they sent another of their number to Sacramento, and he came\nback with some beautiful silk and lace blankets. And they put the baby, wrapped\naround with those blankets, in the rosewood cradle. It looked fine until\nsomeone happened to notice that the floor was so filthy. So these hardened,\ntough men got down on their hands and knees, and with their hardened and horny\nhands, and they scrubbed that floor until it was clean. Of course, what that\ndid was to make the walls and the ceiling and the dirty windows without\ncurtains look absolutely terrible. So they washed down the walls and the\nceiling, and they put curtains at the windows. And now things were beginning to\nlook as they thought they should look. But of course, they had to give up a lot\nof their fighting, because the baby slept a lot, and babies can&#8217;t sleep during\na brawl. So the whole temperature of Roaring Camp seemed to go down. They used\nto take her out and set her by the entrance to the mine in her rosewood cradle\nso they could see her when they came up. Then somebody noticed what a dirty\nplace that was, so they planted flowers, and they made a very nice garden\nthere. It looked quite beautiful. And they would bring her shiny little stones\nand things that they would find in the mine. But when they would put their\nhands down next to hers, their hands looked so dirty. Pretty soon the general\nstore was all sold out of soap and shaving gear and perfume. . . the baby\nchanged everything. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s the way it is for those of good will. That&#8217;s the way it\nis for those who please God. The baby enters into their lives, and he slips\ninto every crevice of their experience, until they say &#8220;Hark! Listen, the\nherald angels sing! God is for us. And Christmas is forever.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">So it only remains for me to ask if Christmas is forever for\nyou. You know, my heart and yours are very much like deep, deep oceans, much\ntoo deep for us to comprehend. But when we open ourselves to God, he comes, and\nhe goes to the very depths of those oceans, and he brings with him those\nspiritual beings, the angels, and he brings with him light, and he brings with\nhim life, and he brings with him the kingdom, and he brings with him the\ntreasures of grace, and he brings with him peace. To everyone who extends the\ninvitation, he so comes, and he brings all of these things, and when these\nthings are in one, then for that one, Christmas is forever. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">My hope and prayer for you this Christmas Sunday is that you\nwill let Christmas be forever for you. And that you will invite this little One\nwho comes into the world trailing all the clouds of glory from eternity itself;\nthat you will let him so come to dominance and power within your life that you\nwill be able to sing with the angels of so long ago, &#8220;Glory be to God in\nthe highest heavens, and on earth peace for those with whom he is\npleased.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">So may it be for you this Christmas. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead1\">\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">The late Bruce\nThielemann served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh,\nPennsylvania. He held degrees from Westminster College, Pittsburgh Theological\nSeminary and a certificate from St. Andrews University in Scotland.<\/span>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Bruce\nThielemann<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">Preaching Today Tape # 63<\/span>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of\nChristianity Today International<\/span>\n    <\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[307],"tax_ctp_authors":[1025],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3387,3413,3600,4506],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33535","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-bruce-thielemann","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-advent","tax_ctp_tags-angels","tax_ctp_tags-christmas","tax_ctp_tags-music"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hark! the Herald Angels - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hark! the Herald Angels - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We&#8217;re thinking together on these Sundays of Advent of the symphony of our salvation, and this morning we come to the third movement of that symphony, which is entitled &#8220;Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.&#8221; It is scored for angelic choir and for us. Christianity is unique among the religions of the world for a variety Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/\",\"name\":\"Hark! the Herald Angels - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2005-08-26T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-08-26T00:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Hark! the Herald Angels\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hark! the Herald Angels - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/hark-herald-angels\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hark! the Herald Angels - CT Pastors","og_description":"We&#8217;re thinking together on these Sundays of Advent of the symphony of our salvation, and this morning we come to the third movement of that symphony, which is entitled &#8220;Hark! 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