Isaac Watts was a precocious child. From the start, he was a voracious reader and natural poet who liked to speak in rhymes. While it amused the family initially, his incessant rhyming eventually wore out its welcome. As his father was leading family prayers at dinner one evening, Isaac was amused watching a mouse run up the bell pull and giggled. When his father asked about his son’s snickering, Isaac responded, “There was a mouse for want of stairs, ran up a rope to say his prayers.” His father, already weary of his son’s rhyming, attempted to spank him as Isaac cried out, “O father, father, pity take, and I will no more verses make.”
God certainly put Isaac’s lyrical ability to good use. He became the “father of English hymnody,” credited with writing seven hundred fifty hymns, many of which are still sung in churches today. We sang one of his cherished compositions during the Christmas season, “Joy to the World,” which was included in a collection of hymns from 1719. He originally intended the song to anticipate the return of Christ. Watts wasn’t so much interested in commemorating a past event (the birth of Jesus) as he was in a future triumphal moment (the second coming of Christ). The carol anticipates Jesus’ return when “The Savior reigns” and “He rules the world with truth and grace.” It longs for the glorious day when the “nations (will) prove the glorious of his righteousness and wonders of his love.” Watts based the hymn on Psalm 98, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst in jubilant song with music…for he comes to judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity” (Ps. 98.4, 8). The carol’s exuberant tune and upbeat lyrics are fitting to lead us in joyful worship of the risen Christ. A prayer from the fourth century Clementine Liturgy leads us in asking God to fill our hearts with joy: