"Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel."
When someone
promises us something wonderful, we can hardly wait for that promise to be
fulfilled. If the promise is something good, we want it now! We really don’t
like to wait. And yet the very best things are worth waiting for.
We can divide
redemptive history into two phases; before the cross and after the cross or looking
forward to the Messiah and after the Messiah. A long, long time ago, God made a
promise to his people, Israel. In fact, he made many promises to them. But
God’s most important promise—the promise all his other promises depended
on—was that he would send the Messiah, the Anointed One, who would save them
from the difficulties of living life in this world broken by sin.
This, the
last of my blogs from the series on the 10 Commandments, forms something of an epilogue
to what we have been looking at. You see
God’s people were under the burden of the Law; for up to that point, it was all
they had been given by God. Not that the
Law itself was a burden but that fallen humans could not keep it and were
constantly breaking it. Even those who
attempted to do so could not be justified by works of law (Galatians 2, Romans
3) rather those whom the Bible speaks of as Righteous were justified by their
faith in the coming Messiah.
The Messiah
would not be an ordinary person, but God’s own Son. The people he made the
promise to had to wait, putting all their faith in the One who made the
promise. Next week we begin the season leading up to Christmas called Advent,
which means coming. During Advent, we remember the thousands of years God’s
chosen people anticipated and longed for the coming of God’s salvation through
the Messiah. Then, at Christmas, we celebrate the fulfilment of the promises
God made. Jesus—the Saviour God had promised—was born to us. No more waiting.
Jesus came.
The writings
of the prophet Isaiah inspired the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
Long before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah prophesied about the Saviour God would
send, implanting in the hearts of God’s people a longing for Immanuel (Hebrew transliteration;
into Greek is Emmanuel). Hundreds of years before Jesus was born to the Virgin
Mary, Isaiah wrote, “The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a
son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’)” (Isaiah 7:14).
Though it was
hard for the people in Isaiah’s day to imagine or understand how God would
actually become a human, they began to long for this Messiah who would be “God
with us.” They looked forward to the day when God would fulfil all his promises
by coming to live with them. We identify with them in their longing for God to fulfil
his promise to send Jesus when we sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. “To
understand what this song is saying, we have to understand some of Israel’s
history.
Remember that
at one time God’s people were slaves in Egypt and God brought them out, led by
Moses. They wandered in the wilderness for forty years before finally entering
into the land God had promised them. But God’s people sinned and rebelled, and
after a while, one part of the country was carried off into exile to Assyria
and another to Babylon. Living far away from home, the people of God longed for
him to come and rescue them from their captivity.
As they sat
in exile, many undoubtedly remembered the prophetic words of Isaiah. A child
was coming who would save Israel—the Lord’s presence in the flesh. We sing
of their longing in the first verse: “O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of
God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!”
When we sing
the verse “O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer. . . ,”
it reminds us of Zechariah’s prophecy: “The morning light from heaven is about
to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death” (Luke 1:78-79). In other words, Zechariah likened the coming Messiah
to the rising sun, shining light upon the dark world (cf. John 1:1-5).
”Oh come,
Thou Day-spring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here; Disperse
the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”
This song
stirs in us a longing for Christ to come to fulfil his promises. I know some
may say it’s too early to mention the ‘C’ word however the words of this hymn prepare
our hearts to truly celebrate Christmas when it comes.
We are to prepare
for Christmas by purposefully nurturing in our hearts and in our homes a sacred
longing for Christ to come. This is why I think it is appropriate to sing this
song before December and the Advent season as singing this song reminds us that
the birth of Christ was not a surprising turn of events in history; it was the
long-awaited fulfilment of God’s promise to his people.
As we sing
it, we are encouraged that as he came before, he will come again! When he comes
again, we’ll hear a shout from the throne of God, saying, “Look, God’s home is
now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God
himself will be with them” (Revelation 21:3). When he comes back, all the
longings we sing about will be fulfilled. Finally, and forever we will enjoy
Emmanuel—God with us.
Song for the day.
We’ve read
about it so lets hear/sing it. I’ve indulged myself a little here as I have
posted two versions of this song. I was
going with the traditional choir then I heard this bluegrass version with another
song at the 3:20 mark. The link is found here.
Then I heard
this more traditional version sung in both English and Hebrew and filmed in
Israel. Seeing the landscape brought home
to me the reality of those who lived there in the past and longed for the
coming of Christ. The link is found here.
Prayer for the day.
Father,
You are the
God of history and time is in your hands, so we know that you can be trusted to
accomplish everything you intend in the world and in our lives in
your perfect timing. Like your people of old, we are waiting for you, God, to fulfil
all your promises. And because we remember how you fulfilled your promise
to send Jesus, we know that you will fulfil all your promises to us. As we prepare our hearts to remember the
birth of your Son let us be ever grateful that we no longer live in darkness but
by your mercy and calling have ‘seen a great light’ and have been drawn into
your kingdom by Emmanuel.
We ask that
you hear our prayers for we ask is Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
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