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Thank you. There is a reason why one of the strong symbols of the Christmas season is an angel or angels.

They often sit at the top of our Christmas trees.

And that reason is, in the New Testament,

angels are all over the story of Christ's birth.

They're often delivering the message of good news and great joy.

Very often delivering that message, and not only during Christmas time.

Welcome back to Issues, Etc, on this Christmas Eve from the

studios of Lutheran Public Radio in Collinsville, Illinois. I'm Todd Wilkin. Thanks for tuning us in.

Pastor Will Whedon is assistant pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hamill, Illinois.

Formerly served as director of worship for the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. He's author of the

books Celebrating the Saints, Thank, Pray, Serve, and O obey. See my Savior's hands in his latest publication. We praise you, O God. He hosts the daily 15-minute verse-by-verse Bible study, produced by Lutheran Public Radio called The Word of the Lord Endores Forever, and he joins us to study the Christmas hymn, Angels from the Realms of Glory. Will, welcome back.

Hey, thank you, Todd. Very Christmas do you. So is it a Christmas hymn, or maybe I should ask,

is it only a Christmas hymn, this angels from the realm of glory? Well, as we work our way through it,

we're going to see it's more than a Christmas hymn. It certainly starts at Christmas, but it actually

runs through several other

feasts. And in that, the author was actually following a convention that was quite common in the church's

hymn Indy. For example, the great hymn by Sudulius, the star proclaims the king is here. Well, it starts out

...