Sometimes our expectations hurt us. We expect that Christmas should be a happy time, but for many people it isn’t. We expect that the end of life should be easier, but it isn’t.

The end of his life was not easy for Paul Gerhardt. His wife and all but one of his children had died. The congregation he served in Lübben did not appreciate him the way his previous congregation did. His only remaining child often was very sick.

Nevertheless, he died with this hymn verse on his lips:

Death cannot destroy forever;
From our fears,/Cares, and tears
It will us deliver.
It will close life’s mournful story,
Make a way/That we may
Enter heav’nly glory. (ELH #377 v. 5)

Gerhardt’s great Christmas hymn, “All My Heart Sings and Rejoices,” also shows us how to have our heart in the right place. The goal of the Christmas celebration for a Christian is not to have worldly happiness but to be comforted eternally.

This hymn (ELH #115) really is a sermon, in 15 verses.

Verse 1 puts us with the shepherds, who have just heard the angels’ “Gloria in Excelsis.”

All my heart sings and rejoices
As I hear/Far and near
Sweetest angel voices.
“Christ is born!” their choirs are singing …

Verses 2-6, the second part of the sermon, goes back nine months to the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announced to the virgin Mary that Christ was leaving His heavenly throne and becoming Man in her womb.

Forth today the Conqu’ror goeth …
God is Man, man to deliver … (v. 2)
He becomes the Lamb that taketh
Sin away … (v. 6)

But like a good Lutheran pastor, Gerhardt also answers the question: What does this mean?

Verse 3: Shall we still dread God’s displeasure,
Who, to save,/Freely gave
His most cherished Treasure? …

Verse 4: … Should the Son of God not love us,
Who, to cheer/Suff’rers here,
Left His throne above us?

Verse 7 returns to the Christmas story. This is the most important verse of the hymn. In this verse, Christ Himself—the Christ-Child—speaks. In most Christmas services and Christmas sermons, we hear people speaking about Christ. But Gerhardt gives us the Christmas comfort in the most direct way. The Christ Child Himself speaks:

Hark! a voice from yonder manger,
Soft and sweet,/Doth entreat:
“Flee from woe and danger.
Brethren, from all ills that grieve you
You are freed;/All you need
I will surely give you.”

In verse 8, we hear the angels’ gospel invitation to the shepherds and all people: “Love Him who with love is glowing;/Hail the Star …”

The next part of the sermon has us listen to the adult Jesus telling us what His birth means. Verses 9-11 are a meditation on Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:28: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

The last part of the sermon—like every good Lutheran sermon—gives pure Gospel. We join Simeon, just as we do in the Lord’s Supper, by singing, “Let me in my arms receive Thee …” Then verses 13-14 declare the absolution of all our sins:

Verse 13: … I am clean,/All my sin/Is removed forever.

Verse 14: I am pure, in Thee believing,
From Thy store/Evermore
Righteous robes receiving. …

The very last verse brings us to heaven. That is where the Christmas message ends: in heaven. Paul Gerhardt shows us that even at Christmastime we must find not the worldly happiness that is fleeting, but Christ’s comfort, which is everlasting:

Dearest Lord, Thee will I cherish,
Though my breath/Fail in death,
Yet I shall not perish,
But with Thee abide forever
There on high,/In that joy
Which can vanish never.

Jerome Gernander is pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Princeton, Minnesota.