Think what it meant to sing this Christmas carol in 1942.
The United States and Britain were losing World War II. France was conquered. the next Germany offensive was expected to finish off Russia. No one would have been much doubted, if he predicted that no one but bloodthirsty dictators would come out of this war on top: a world given over to Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, the Japanese warlords, Mao Tse-tung. Lights out.
This is the world into which Jesus Christ entered in the flesh. Because God intervenes in history, the lights that went out in 1942 were turned back on. Because Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we dare to sing to celebrate His birth, we dare to hope, we defy the powers of this fallen world.
Sing, sing, and sing louder!
Now this is a magnificent worship song, and I love it. In 1942, I was only nine years old, but I remember well the precarious position of our country.
My dad was in the army and I was in charge of grocery shopping, banking and other things for my mother. Even with the ration stamps, difficulties of all kinds, we did not have a society that was nearly as corrupt as our present one. Life was hard, but in a different way. There was no anti-American nonsense in those days. We were struggling for genuine survival, not the imagined “rights” that has everybody in a twist these days.