All of us know the beautiful Christmas hymn "O Holy Night." This carol was written by Adolphe Charles Adam, a French composer. Ironically, it was frowned upon by church authorities who denounced it for poor taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion."

In that first stanza the writer invites us to close our eyes and imagine the world before the birth of Jesus. He says it is a world that lay "in sin and error pining." The word pining refers to the wasting away of the human spirit as it grieves and endures pain. In other words, he paints a picture of a world of darkness without light, and a world of despair without hope. But then come the next three words "Till He appeared." When He appeared everything changed.

The president of one of our great theological seminaries was at a meetin…