“Therefore the LORD Himself will give you a sign. ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.’” Isaiah 7:14 (cf. Matthew 1:23)
The First Sunday of Advent often catches me by surprise. When I see the Advent wreath at the front of the sanctuary area, I can’t help but think, Christmas CAN’T be only four weeks away! Immediately, a flood of everything I have to do before Christmas fills my mind. Also, a flood of emotions come with that “to do” list. Like so many of us; along with all that is needed to be done, most of us have fewer seats at our tables or around the Christmas tree this year. Life is hard but it is NOT empty.
Christmas Carols/hymn are one the best things, in church, to take my mind off of the “to do” list and the emotions of the season. The song that I always long to hear and sing at Advent is O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The mournful tune slows my mind and the words remind me of the ache just below the surface of my daily life that seems to always be there.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.
Captivity, mourning, and loneliness are discordant with the bright cheerfulness of Christmas and many of our secular carols especially. But in many ways they are the reason for the season. The God head came to earth to pay the debt owed against the ledger of God’s justice. Jesus was born… a son was born, a son was given…and His name would be called Immanuel. He came to us to fix the relationship that was broken in Adam and then subsequently with all our continuous sins since. This broken relationship with God spilled over to all our other relationships as well. Paul tells of this transformative work in Ephesians 2:14-17- “For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” As our priest, Jesus, offered Himself up as a sacrifice to appease God’s wrath, to satisfy God’s Law so that He could mediate and bring together parties formally separated by sin.
So this Advent let us not be surprised by the work or disheartened by the emotions that hit us square on. Let us sing, praise and meditate on the words of the song…
O Come, thou Key of David, come and open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
So Israel of God… rejoice today that Immanuel is come and is coming again!
God bless.
In His Grip,
Pastor Mike
