This is my favorite Christmas carol that isn’t really a Christmas carol. The theme comes from Psalm 98, which comes from perhaps eight centuries before the birth of Jesus, making this almost the oldest source of any of our Christmas songs. The English words we know were written by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), who is often identified as the “Father of English Hymnody.” The hymn’s content is mostly a reflection on Jesus currently reigning as Lord and Savior, rather than the traditional “baby Jesus is born” motif.

In his hymns – 750 or so in all – Watts expressed both a deep piety and a theological rigor. Among those we still sing today: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “I Sing the Mighty Power of God,” “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” “Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun,” and “From All that Dwell Below the Skies.”

The tune Antioch is attributed to George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), and the arrangement most commonly used comes to us from Lowell Mason (1792-1872). Mason composed about 1600 hymn tunes, including the tunes for “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee,” and the common arrangements for “Blest Be the Tie that Binds” and “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”

1. Joy to the world! the Lord is come: Let earth receive her king.
Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

2. Joy to the world! the Savior reigns: Let all their songs employ,
while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy.

3. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground;
He come to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

4. He rules the world with truth and grace, And make the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness, and wonders of his love.

^.Here’s a pretty lively version, with Whitney Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir, from The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack.