READ : Matthew 1:18-23
“Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!”
Advent is the season to prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ and prepare Christ for the return of Christ. We often lose our focus in a holiday blitz of stringing lights, shopping, and eating enough to justify New Year?s resolutions. {{more: continue …}}But the spirit of it all, the spirit of this season, is kept alive in our songs. Advent is a season of singing. And in the church, it is when we sing some of our best.
One of our favorites is ?O Come, O Come Emmanuel.? It is a song of longing, a song that falls between the first quiet note of the inauguration of God?s kingdom in Jesus? birth and the final resounding chord of its future consummation in his return. Historically, we are living in between the two notes: Christ has come, and Christ will come again.
Advent is the silence between these notes. Silence gives sound its resonance. Yearning gives feeling to hope. So in the between time separating Jesus? first and second Advents, we sing songs like ?O Come, O Come Emmanuel.? We sing in anticipation of a day when God will finish what he started in Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
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