Advent Hymn #5: No More Turning From the Child [Reprise]

Perhaps a fitting song for this day after Christmas. It speaks of our tendency to turn away from Jesus soon after celebrating his birth, to look for him in the wrong places. The truth of the incarnation is that Jesus comes not through the seats of power, and yet overpowers those seats anyway. Of course his is a power unlike any other which not so much coerces and transforms those that it touches.

No More Turning From The Child
word by Charles Wesley, music by Carl Thomas Gladstone

Where is the holy heaven-born child,
Heir of the everlasting throne,
Who heaven and earth hath reconciled,
And God and human joined in one?
Shall we of earthly kings enquire,
To courts or palaces repair?
The nation's hope, the world's desire,
Alas! We cannot find him there.

No more turning!
See there! The new born Saviour see,
By faith discern the great I AM;
'Tis he! The eternal God! 'tis he
That bears the mild Immanuel's name.

We search the outward church in vain,
They cannot him we seek declare,
They have not found the Son of Man,
Or known the sacred name they bear.
Then let us turn no more aside,
But use the light himself imparts,
His Spirit is our surest guide,
His Spirit glimmering in our hearts.

Drawn by his grace we come from far,
And fix on heaven our wishful eyes,
That ray divine, that orient star
Directs us where the infant lies.
The Prince of Peace on earth is found,
The child is born, the son is given;
Tell it to all the nations round,
Jehovah is come down from heaven!