O Come, O Come Emmanuel

In all the razzle and dazzle of the North American Christmas season--with the lights, the songs on the radio, the red and green decorations, the shopping, a large man with a white beard and funny clothes., etc.--it's not hard to see how the Christ of Christmas often gets forgotten, or simply assigned an important seat among many.

I don't want to be a Scrooge or a Grinch, and I'm not calling for a ban on Christmas, as the Puritans did. Although it could be argued that the secularized Christmas they objected to, isn't all that different from the secularized Christmas observed in our day.

What I do want to do is call to mind that Christmas isn't all about nice feelings, family and presents. It's not even simply about Christ being born. It's also about our need for Christ to be born--our need for a Savior.

Somewhere around or before 1100 A.D. an anonymous poet created a metrical version of an even older song, which was later set to the tune we now know as "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." Strangely, this hymn, more than any other, is subject to a great amount of variation. I've not yet found two hymn books that agree on the lyrics! Searching the internet finds multiple versions that include different verses, or variations on verses. Still there is one common theme in all of them: Come, O Come Emmanuel, because things are really bad without You, and You are our only hope.

Maybe you missed that about this familiar hymn (if it is familiar to you). You can listen to a traditional choral version of this here. Here are the lyrics (at least one version of them) to the verses:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear.

O 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.

O come, Desire of nations, bind

In one the hearts of all mankind;

Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,

And be Thyself our King of Peace.

O come, Thou Branch of Jesse's stem

Unto Thine own and rescue them!

From depths of hell Thy people save,

And give them vict'ry o'er the grave.

There's also a chorus, but let's consider the verses on their own for a moment. Do you see the words: captive, mourns and lonely in the first verse? How about gloomy clouds of night and death's dark shadow in the second? Now take a look at the other verses. What do you see there?

Now, there are other, less mournful verses sometimes associated with this song, but did you ever notice the desperate pleading in this hymn before (assuming you've heard it)?

One of the reasons I love this old hymn is that it reminds us of how much we need a Savior: our situation actually is overwhelming; we cannot save ourselves; without a Savior, we are doomed. Few Christmas hymns capture that desperation, let alone celebrate it!

But we do have a Savior and He has come to us and He will come again!

Here is the chorus to that same hymn (to be sung after each verse):

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

These days, it's becoming more popular in some circles to once again embrace the Biblical concept of lament. We find Psalms of lament (Psalm 5, 102, for example), and poems of lament in some of the prophets (the whole book of Lamentations, for example). In lament we give voice to our pain, our loss, our desperation and neediness. Lament is entirely proper.

Yet, I would argue that lament that doesn't resolve to or point toward hope at some point, isn't Christian lament. Lament that merely wallows in self-pity is ultimately a self-centered lament; it is the selfishness of Jacob losing Joseph and refusing to be comforted (Genesis 37:35). Christian lament must yield to faith and trust in God, it must go beyond experience to the Truth that puts experience in its proper place. 

This hymn captures that well. Even while Israel is captive, mourning and lonely, even when the gloomy clouds of night feel like death's dark shadow, even while our sad divisions are not ceasing, or when hell and the grave seem to claim more victories than they ought, even then "Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee...!"

This is what faith in a good God looks like when things aren't good. We rejoice, knowing--knowing!--that Emmanuel (God with us) shall come to us. He will! Standing in faith, we re-align our emotions with the Truth of Who God is. Truth, that first piece of the armor of God--the belt that is placed over our guts (where we feel emotion!). We turn our face from our pain, our loss, our desperation, and our neediness, toward the One Who heals, Who blesses, Who comforts, and Who is Emmanuel, God with us.

During this advent season, my wife is going through chemotherapy. It's not all razzle-dazzle, blinking lights and happy songs in our house. But there is rejoicing. Emmanuel has come! Emmanuel is with us now! Emmanuel will come again! Of this we have no doubt.

Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus!