O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. And so we begin again to sing hymns that point towards a glorious picture of the coming of our Savior, Jesus, God who became man.

O come, O come, Emmanuel (Hymn 56) is one of the most recognizable of those hymns. It is a song of both anticipation and thanksgiving. It anticipates Emmanuel, derived from a Hebrew word meaning “God with us.” It anticipates a litany of acts of liberation from physical and spiritual enslavement from which Emmanuel will free his faithful people. And it rejoices that Emmanuel will come.

It is interesting that Advent comes so close to Thanksgiving Day. In our Christian lives, we move quickly from a day that gives thanks for God’s abundant blessings to a season that prepares us for His greatest blessing- Jesus, God with us. That reality tends to get buried in the secular preparations for our commercialized Christmas. As Christians in a secularized society, we enter two parallel seasons; preparation for the celebration of Christmas, the birth of our Savior, and preparation for the celebration of Christmas, the commercial holiday. At the peril of our spiritual well-being, the commercial messages are the most frequent and the loudest.

During this Advent season, we encourage you to give particular attention to the giving of your time, your talent, and your treasure in service to our Lord and in thanksgiving for the abundance with which He graces us daily. What a wonderful counterpoise to the frenzied season the marketers strive to draw us into. Hum some Advent hymns and keep focused on the abundance for which you have to be thankful and experience the peace and joy that is to come in the true story of Advent and Christmas.