God with Us

“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.”

I love the Christmas carol O Come, O Come Emmanuel.  I find the words so beautiful, and so haunting.  Beautiful because Emmanuel did come to Israel; sad because Israel missed it.  They missed the Savior who came two thousand years ago and they are still looking for one yet to come.  

Christmas is my favorite holiday.  I think the verse that embodies Christmas for me is the first part of John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  It is so hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that God became a human, and it was through his humanity that he made a way for the rest of mankind to be saved.  

Christmas and Easter are always inescapably tied together in my mind.  On Christmas he came, the plan began to unfold; but on Easter it was finished.  The Savior came.  All through the old testament they waited; and then there was four-hundred years of silence, how hard it must have been to live at that time!  

But we live in the time when the waiting is over.  The Savior has come - God has dwelt among us - and because of that we have a future and a hope.  We do, indeed, have great reason to rejoice; which is why I love the second part of the song.  I always feel sad at the first part, but I feel happy at the second part because Emmanuel did come.  He incarnated into our reality, he walked among us, and he paid the ultimate price so that we could be right with God.