Immanuel
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We are in the season of Advent, the month leading up to Christmas
It is a time of anticipation for the coming of Jesus
Each week we remember something else that Jesus brings,
Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy,
And I thought it would be fun to look into some of the old Christmas Hymns that speak of these things, their history, and the scriptures that inspired them.
So let’s start with Hope,
And for Hope I chose the song Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel
This Hymn in full first appeared in Latin in 1710, but its roots are over 1000 years old.
The Latin lyrics were originally a set of prayers, each one prayed in leading up to Christmas
Each one calling Jesus to come by a different name or title.
Sapienta (Wisdom)
Adonai (Lord - borrowing from Hebrew)
Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)
Clavis David (Key of David)
Oriens (Dayspring - a word for sunrise)
Rex Gentium (King of Nations)
Emmanuel (God With Us - From the Hebrew)
These seven prayers led up to Christmas, but when the first letter of each prayer is read backwards it from the latin phrase (Ero Cras) “I come tomorrow” fulfilling the hope that each prayer was seeking on Christmas day.
Now these prayers were eventually adopted into a hymn, but the gregorian chant we recognize as Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel originated quite separately
It’s earliest record is from France in the 1600s, as a funeral chant - which explains why this song sounds the way it does, almost haunting, mourning, capturing the feeling of exile and anticipation for future hope.
Much less cheerful than most Christmas Carols.
it’s melody was originally sung at burials, with the hope of resurrection and Jesus’ Return.
So Lets look at where this ancient hymn draws it’s inspriation.
Emmanuel
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.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
This prophecy takes place while Jerusalem is surrounded by the assyrian army,
The same assyrians that just a few years earlier sent the Northern kingdom of Israel into Exile, From which they never returned.
And in the midst of this God gives them a sign, a virgin will give birth to a Child who is God with Us
Im - With manu - Us El - God
And he says the Child will eat Curds and Honey
Curds come from milk
He is eating Milk and Honey - he is a child of the Promised Land
And the Child will know how to refuse evil and choose good,
he will never do anything wrong.
Now the Assyrian army is defeated, but the Promised Emmanuel Child would not be born for over 700 years, and so the people waited,
about 200 years later Jerusalem would be destroyed, and Judah sent into Exile, and the people knew that God had Promised a Child Emmanuel - God with us,
The Hope of the one who would bring them home
Rod of Jesse
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
This passage comes shortly after Isaiah explains that Even though judah will be exiled to Babylon, they will return to Jerusalem, and then this figure will arise, and speaks of a descendant of Jesse, King David’s father,
Who will judge not as the world Judges, but as God judges,
Look at how Jesus described his work,
And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”
He does not judge, but his words will destroy the wicked, He does not speak his own words, but what God has said, not judging with his eyes or ears, but by the spirit of God.
Jesus is the rod of Jesse, and while his first coming was to save the world, His second coming will judge the world, and free those who obey him from the tyranny of the wicked.
The Hope of a good a righteous judge that is not partial
Before we move on I want to address the latter half of this verse of the song
From depths of hell thy People save.
Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
Paul writes in Ephesians that during Christ’s death he freed from captivity all the righteous people who died prior to his sacrifice from Sheol - the realm of the dead, to heaven.
We have hope not just in a righteous judge, but also in one who corrects the wrongs of the past, and judges all rightly.
Dayspring/dawn
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.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
Malachi Describes God’s judgment, and he speaks of the Sun - “SUN” of righteousness rising with healing in his wings,
and the same sun that saves the righteous destroys the wicked. And when Jesus began his ministry, Matthew Writes
the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
Quoting Isaiah
Jesus is the light of dawn or the dayspring, and to those who trust in him his arrival is the best news. The Hope of an end to spiritual darkness.
Key of David
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.
and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house.
This prophecy comes as Isaiah is speaking against an unrighteous ruler of Judah, who will be hurled from his throne, and God will set up his own servant in the place of the king, and establish his throne, and give him the key of David which opens doors no one can close and closes doors no one can open.
Something that God claims form himself in the early chapters of Revelation
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
Jesus came shortly after the rise of King Herod, an man who called himself the King of the Jews, even though he was not Jewish.
and now Jesus’s throne is in heaven, and so we wait with the hope of the one who can open the doors of heaven for us, the hope of our king returning.
The FInal verse in english says:
O come, O come, thou Lord of Might
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law,
In cloud, and majesty, and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
In the latin they borrow the Hebrew word Adonai
Lord
The word chosen to replace the name of God when read aloud, so as to not take God’s name in vain
And this verse ties back to Sinai, with Moses, and the Lord giving them the Law,
But by including this verse - which many of us skip - the Song claims that Jesus is the LORD, that Jesus is God And more than that, that Jesus is God with us.
Emmanuel.
There are other verses to the song, but I think i have made my point.
Advent remembers the time of waiting for the Messiah’s first coming, while we also wait for the ultimate fulfillment when Jesus comes again.
And He will come again.
And we wait for his return with hope
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
Christ has Come, Emmanuel has come, and we wait for him to return again, but HE IS STILL WITH US.
God with us!
as long as we are together, God is with us, Jesus promised us this very thing:
Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Notice this early bit - whatever we bind on earth in bound in heaven,
that sounds a lot like the key of David that opens and closes doors,
Because when two or three of us agree in Christ’s name, then HE shall do it for us.
Because he is Not Just God in Heaven, nor God who died for our sins, nor God who is coming back again,
He is God with us.
So Church, let us agree, with our full hope in Jesus, to live like God is with us this Christmas.
