Why We Rejoice: a reflection on "O Come O Come Immanuel"

“O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.”

Praise be to Christ, who stepped into our lonely exile and mourned alongside us, so that he could bring us out of it and back to the Promised Land. This is no escapist fantasy that denies the reality of evil. We have a God who looked evil full in the face, allowed it to do its worst and STILL overcame it. He has come. This is why we rejoice.

“O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer out spirits by thine advent here. Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death's dark shadows put to flight.”

Advent isn't just a season; the word means the arrival of something important or long-awaited. Another translation of this hymn phrases it, “cheer us by thy drawing nigh.” The presence of Christ should mean the presence of joy.

But I'd be lying if I claimed that I always experience that. Sometimes the gloomy clouds of night refuse to disperse. And however much we may try to ignore it, death's dark shadows will come for all of us. This is why we still pray for Christ to come; we don't experience the fullness of His presence yet. But even while we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we can have confidence because Immanuel – God with us – has come. One day He will come again and disperse the gloomy clouds of night once and for all. But until then, we are cheered by the hope given by His promise and the profound demonstration of His love for us in His first coming. This is why we rejoice.

“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.”

It’s easy for Christians to forget that the giving of the Law was a great moment. It was the clearest demonstration of God’s character to date, a vivid picture of the majesty of the One who had just saved His people from the most powerful nation in the world by having them march through a large body of water. It showed people exactly how they were to live in light of being chosen by a holy God.

In a world that seems to be sliding back into chaos, we too long to be saved, for God to come in a show of glory and set up a just society free of exploitation, oppression and violence. And that will happen. But first God needs to make us capable of living in a just society. So He sent Christ to atone for sin and the Holy Spirit to transform us so that we can do what’s right. God has provided all we need to be ready for His glorious return. This is why we rejoice.

“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.”

Just as the ancient son of Jesse led his people into battle and struck down enemies they could not defeat for themselves, Christ has defeated our true enemies. He defeated sin by making atonement and empowering us to fight it, freeing us from its guilt and power. He defeated death by making a way for us to escape the depths of Hell and by assuring us that our bodies will be resurrected. He defeated the devil by disarming him so nothing he does can destroy us. He can tempt, but with every temptation God provides a way out. He can accuse, but his accusations have no weight, for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. He can attack us, but God will protect or restore all that we lose, and Satan’s ultimate destruction is assured. The battle still rages, but the victory is won. This is why we rejoice.

“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.”

In moments when troubles seem overwhelming and we long to escape or when we should be perfectly happy yet our joy feels empty, we realize that every home we have known has been just a shadow of a greater home that we long for. We are homesick for a place we have never seen, where we cannot go on our own. And He has come to open the way to bring us to the place our hearts have always yearned to go. This is why we rejoice.

“O come, thou Wisdom from on high, and order all things far and nigh. To us the path of knowledge show, and teach us in her ways to go.”

If modern science has taught us anything, it is that the universe is ordered by wisdom. Think about the vastness and complexity of our universe and the fact that everything from clusters of galaxies to the tiny particles within atoms operate according to laws that we can know and study. Wisdom has shaped our universe, and for us to live appropriately within that universe we also need wisdom – understanding of relationships and ethics and how to make good choices. And now the wisdom that ordered the universe, the Word by whom all things were made has stepped into a human form, to live a life of perfect wisdom and has shown us exactly what a human life well lived looks like. This is why we rejoice.

“O come Desire of Nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease. Fill all the world with Heaven’s peace.”

The promise to Abraham that all the nations would be blessed through him is now fulfilled. People from all nations come and find their deepest desire, their thirst for God, satisfied. And now we wait for the time when all our lesser desires will be met in Him or else will fade into insignificance before the light of His glory. We wait for the time when conflict between nations and individuals will cease, for evil will be restrained and we will be transformed into the image of the Prince of Peace. This is why we rejoice.

“Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” He is peace and wisdom. He is the Way. He is our mighty savior and our just Lord. He is the light who brings true joy. He is God with us. Today, let us remember his coming and celebrate the fulfillment of our hope knowing that His victory is a certain as though it were already complete. Today, let us rejoice.

The Darkness Before Easter Dawn

In the hours before dawn, the women rose, gathered their spices and went to anoint Jesus’body. He was their friend, their teacher, and in one case, their son. The one person who knew their hearts completely and loved them still. The person who had given them hope that God had seen the misery of His people and was going to help them. The person who had healed sickness and cast out demons and even raised the dead. But now he was the one who was dead.

They had watched him take every agonizing step up Golgotha. They had seen the pain on his face and seen those long nails sticking out of his wrists. They had stared, unable to tear their eyes away but wishing they could. They had wept and wondered why God would allow this injustice and why the best man they had ever known would have to suffer so, and why they would have to lose him.

But by Sunday morning, their tears were spent. They must have found some way to numb the sorrow, to block it up in the bottoms of their hearts and roll a stone over the entrance. They busied themselves with preparing to anoint the body and with worrying about the stone at the entrance to the tomb, because the alternative was just too painful.

We, too, feel pain that is the same in kind if not in degree. We lose those we love. We watch friends get hurt. We see the injustice of the world and mourn for victims of senseless violence. We feel hope, only to have it crushed. Some of us wonder if there is anything left to live for.

But power is at work in the hour before Easter dawn. Even as the women trudge along the dark, stony path to the tomb, angels descend, and the stone is rolled away. Air fills the lungs collapsed by crucifixion, the hands pierced by nails move, His eyes open, and the soul of the man who spoke and laughed and cried and loved returns to His body. He is risen.

And those three words breathe life into souls that were nearly destroyed by sorrow. The injustice is righted, the loss is restored, the pain is healed. Hope is not only rekindled, but it blazes forth as brightly as the sun that now rises above the eastern horizon. He is alive, not only in our hearts but in reality. And because He lives, we also will live.

It’s now the day after Easter. The songs are sung, the decorations are coming down, and the chocolate is, or soon will be, consumed. It’s Monday, and people are going back into the drudgery of work. Life presses in with its various problems: sick children, quarrels with loved ones, disasters on the news, and pain hidden in our hearts.

But the Resurrection is not just a story. It is a historical event in which the raw, physical reality of death was reversed. Jesus had – and still has – a body just like yours but now transformed. He experienced all the struggles of your life and more. But He has overcome all that evil, and someday, He will return to destroy evil forever.

Friends, Christ is risen today and every other day. Remember that next time you feel the darkness pressing in on you. Jesus is alive.

A Meditation on Isaiah 35

One night when I was in the depths of depression, I was getting ready for bed. Out of force of habit, I sat down to read a psalm. But in my tiredness, I missed Psalms and ended up reading through all of Isaiah 35 before I noticed my “mistake.”

Here’s what I read:

1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;

the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;

2 it shall blossom abundantly

and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,

the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They shall see the glory of the Lord,

the majesty of our God.

3 Strengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees.

4 Say to those who have an anxious heart,

“Be strong; fear not!

Behold, your God

will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you.”

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

For waters break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert;

7 the burning sand shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water;

in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,

the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

8 And a highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;

the unclean shall not pass over it.

It shall belong to those who walk on the way;

even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

9 No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,

but the redeemed shall walk there.

10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain gladness and joy,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

I believe that God directed me to the “wrong” passage that day because this was exactly what my hurting soul needed. I needed to read this promise of renewal for the deserts – the empty, lonely, broken places of the world – because my heart felt like a desert. I needed to hear that no matter how hopeless I felt, I wasn’t really without hope because God had promised to make things right.

Verse 10 in particular stood out to me with its promise that “sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” I believe the complete fulfillment of these verses will come when Christ returns. But until then, God’s promise that better things are coming can give us hope and comfort.

But is that all our faith offers? Is it merely a piece of positive thinking or an “opiate of the masses”? Not according to Isaiah.

Verses 5 and 6 speak of healing for the blind, the deaf, the lame and the mute. Just as God gives us emotional comfort, He offers healing. We see that in the pages of the Bible, and I believe that God continues to work miracles today. Yet once again we will need to wait until Christ returns for all disease to completely disappear.

OK, so Christianity offers emotional and physical healing – for us. But is it just a personal thing that only touches its followers? Again, the answer is “no.”

The whole point of this passage is that the physical world will be healed. Verses 1, 2, 6 and 7 speak of desert being turned into lush, fertile land. In a sense, this is undoing the effects that sin had on all of nature. Part of God’s curse after the first sin was that the land would be unfruitful, producing thorns and thistles instead of good crops. But here we see the curse undone. Even the harshest, least hospitable lands are transformed into lush valleys. The whole earth becomes a fruitful, safe and holy place.

How does all this happen? The passage doesn’t explicitly say, but verse 8 points to the answer. It refers to the “Way of Holiness” in which the redeemed walk. Verse 10 indicates that it leads back to Jerusalem, the city of God. In the Bible, Jerusalem is seen as the place of God’s presence, and we know from the New Testament that the way back into God’s presence is Jesus. He is the One through whom our hearts, our bodies and all of creation will be healed. When we believe and obey Him, we walk in the way of holiness.

We all face moments when we feel dry and empty. We sometimes fall and wander away from the way of holiness. But we must “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not!’” That means picking ourselves up when we fall, but it also means building others up when they are weak. We must remember, as it says in verse 4, that God will come and save us. We can be strong and work to restore the things that are broken in human lives and the outside world only when we place our hope in the One who has the power to accomplish this seemingly impossible mission.

The Sun in the Night

Those who like me grew up going to church are aware that Christians like to draw a distinction between joy and happiness. The idea is that happiness is based on circumstances, but joy is not. We like to quote 1Thessalonians 5:16-18: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

And that’s all well and good, but for someone who struggles with depression, it can be confusing. The Bible says we should be joyful in all circumstances. Depression is a circumstance. Therefore we should be joyful when we’re depressed. What?

This seems impossible, so I started examining each step of the argument. I don’t want to deny the truth of Scripture (by saying we don’t have to be joyful always). Arguing that depression is a sin (not a “circumstance”) also doesn’t make sense to me (for reasons I can explain if people are interested). So, paradoxical as it sounds, there must be a way to find joy in depression.

I’ve come to a tentative solution: joy in the midst of depression looks less like happiness and more like hope. I think the details are better explained in poetry than in prose.

The Sun in the Night

Joy is the sun that fills my world with light,

That paints the flowers with their rainbow hue,

That crowns the dancing waves with diamonds bright

And shimmers out from every drop of dew.

But sorrow strikes – I spin into the dark.

Night rises up to steal the sunlight’s throne.

A hungry void devours every spark.

Night hisses, “Light is dead. You are alone.”

Yet though the sun is hidden from my gaze,

It does not for that reason cease to be.

I see it in the moon’s reflected rays

And grasp at hope’s unfelt reality.

Joy’s gravity holds me within my way,

Saves me from slipping out into despair.

It guards me till I spin back into day

And dawn paints roses in the morning air.

Seeing Christmas Through Tragedy

I woke up yesterday looking forward to an exciting, fun, joyful day. It was the day of my company’s annual Christmas Rally here in Taipei. I was looking forward to greeting the audience as they came in, chatting with them and learning about them, and watching the show, which is usually spectacular.

As I waited for my mind to fully wake up, I wandered into the living room to see if any of my housemates were awake. Sure enough one was sitting on the couch. But the look of shocked concern on her face stopped me in my tracks. “Did you hear the news?”

“What news?”

“There was a school shooting in Connecticut.” The name of my home state drove all sleepiness from my mind as I felt the muscles in my chest clenching. Sitting down, I glanced at the TV report. I think I read the heading two or three times, spelling it out in my head to be sure it said “Newtown” and not “Newington.” With a modicum of relief I realized my family and friends were probably safe.

I numbly sat and watched the news report, but it wasn’t until several hours later that I felt the full effects of what happened. I flopped down on my bed and cried. The high number of deaths, the fact that it seems like no one had been wounded but survived, the fact that I could not think of any possible motive, the young age of the vast majority of the victims and the timing during a season that is a supposed to be a time of joy celebrated with family combined into a towering mass of evil that I just couldn’t take in.

Sprinkled in with my mourning was a recurring question about my own situation: “How will I be able to greet people cheerfully at the Christmas Rally?” It felt somehow inappropriate to be celebrating, wearing sparkly clothing and grinning at people coming to our show when so many people were mourning this senseless violence. But then I realized that I had it backwards. Events like this are exactly why Christmas is worth celebrating.

The reason for this is best explained by a story, not the one that began two thousand years ago in a stable in Bethlehem, but the one that began much earlier in a garden called Eden. The world, as God first formed it was a paradise – a glorious, unblemished landscape, delicate flowers in thousands of colors, a sky full of stars with no pollution to block them, all seen with eyes that were probably keener than our eyes today and received with hearts that celebrated them as signs of the deep love of our Creator. The relationships between people, the world and God were a smooth, harmonious dance. There was no sickness, no death, no evil, no hate. The Hebrew word for this is shalom. Usually translated as peace, it actually refers to far more than the English word “peace.” It means wholeness, abundance and flourishing, all of which were present in the world as it was first made.

Of course, that’s not how we experience the world now, and the reason for that is that people choose to turn away from God. We’ve all felt the effects of sin this weekend, far more deeply than anything I could conjure up with language. And the tragedy in Newtown is just one of millions of manifestations, big and small, of the way our world is broken. Conflict in families, war, prejudice, greed, disease, bullying, natural disasters, etc. all show how far from shalom this world is. The world is broken, and we broke it.

But now, we finally get to that Bethlehem stable. Christmas is a celebration of God stepping into this broken world and living among us. He experienced all kinds of evil during His life – including narrowly escaping from a mass killing of children. And in the end, He bore the worst consequences of our sin, taking the punishment for all breakers of shalom. But He rose from the dead, proving that the seemingly senseless killing of Jesus, the one truly innocent person, succeeded in putting shalom back together, starting with the hearts of His followers and spreading outward into the whole world.

Traditionally, the weeks leading up to Christmas are also a time when Christians wait for Jesus to return to Earth and restore shalom to the whole world. The mourning we share today is one of many reminders that this hasn’t happened yet – but the promise of Christmas is that it will. Even though God’s people had to wait for thousands of years, God did come to save them. His kingdom is established, and though things may look bad now, it will ultimately triumph.

I left for the Christmas rally yesterday with what I can only call joy. Not bubbling happiness or excitement, but a calm, steady delight in the knowledge that this night will pass. I felt the sorrow (and still do) but this vein of deep sadness actually strengthened the hope that I have a savior powerful enough to overcome even horrific evil like this. That is the only thing that makes any Christmas worth celebrating.

If any friends, family or survivors of the Sandy Hook shooting are reading this, I offer my sympathy and condolences. Please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. 

But Christ Is Risen

When I was a child, I once told my grandmother that I was going to be a worrywart when I grew up. I probably didn’t know what that meant. I was just repeating what someone else had said to me. Nevertheless, I have surely lived up to that early aspiration.

I worry about a lot of things. I worry about whether I’m doing my work well. I worry about whether I’m eating healthy enough, exercising enough or saving enough money. I worry about my relationships with friends and about my performance in the English Bible study I teach. I worry about the things I hear on the news – political unrest, wars, a plunging economy and a skyrocketing national debt.

All this worry understandably can leave me exhausted and discouraged. That’s how I was feeling one evening last week when I watched a short video by John Stonestreet.

The video talked about Christians engaging in culture, something that I worry is not happening often enough or well enough. But it ended on a note of hope and provided me with some much-needed perspective on my problems.

“The story of the world [is] secure because of one thing that can’t be changed: Christ has risen.”

The world may look like it's going downhill, but Christ is risen. No matter who wins the upcoming election, Christ is king. No matter what happens to the economy, I serve a God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and who provides for His children. No matter how much our culture degenerates, Christ has promised to return and make all things new. No matter how helpless I feel speaking to my Bible study students, I serve a God whose Word was powerful enough to create the universe, and it is still powerful enough to bring new life to even the most resistant heart. I can and should work hard at whatever I do, but when I have done my part, the results are in His hands. 

Resurrection Power

This poem is about spring and about hope. I wouldn't really describe it as an "Easter poem," but it does relate to Easter a little. It's focused mostly on the final resurrection when all of creation will be made new, and about how springtime points ahead to that event. Although this did not happen on that first Easter, the resurrection of Jesus was a promise. It showed that evil had been defeated, so we could have hope that we, like Christ would receive new life.

Resurrection Power

The buried bulbs burst forth in glorious flower

The secret seeds spring up to greet the sun

Each leaf, alive with resurrection power

Now quivers with delight at life begun.

They sing, “No more shall winds of winter threaten,

No more shall darkness dominate the day.

The power of death and emptiness is beaten.

New life has come and will not fade away.”

Each year the song rings out from all creation,

The theme which from the ancient past it’s known,

An echo of a future consummation,

A day when nature will no longer groan.

Rejoice, my soul, and join the joyful chorus

That blends all creatures’ voices into one.

Await the day when light will conquer darkness

And all on Earth spring up to greet the Son.

The Riches of His Glorious Inheritance

Ephesians 1:18-19

… having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to his great might …

Reading through this passage today, I was struck for the first time by the phrase “his glorious inheritance in the saints.” Before, when I read this verse, I had always associated it with another nearby verse that says that the Holy Spirit is “the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” After all, they both use the word “inheritance.”

The other verse, Ephesians 1:14, is referring to what God has promised those who have become His children in Christ. This includes righteousness, a face-to-face relationship with God, and a position in the New Heavens and the New Earth. We get these in part today through the Holy Spirit (our “guarantee”), but we will not fully “acquire possession of it” until Christ’s second coming.

But then I realized that that isn’t what Ephesians 1:18 is talking about. The idea in verse 14 could be called “the saints’ glorious inheritance in Christ,” but verse 18 is about Christ’s glorious inheritance in the saints.

What does THAT mean? Christ is God and has complete control of everything in the universe. Furthermore, our salvation was completely from God’s grace, not because of anything we give God, as the rest of Ephesians 1 (and the rest of Scripture) makes clear.

I think it means that Christ’s “glorious inheritance” IS the saints. Just as Israel was “a people of [God’s] own inheritance,” the saints, God’s people under the New Covenant, belong to Christ. Note that “saints” when used in the New Testament means all those who believe in Jesus. For proof, you can look at Ephesians 1:1, where the letter is addressed to “the saints who are in Ephesus,” meaning the whole church.

This is absolutely stunning. It means that WE are Christ’s glorious inheritance. God sees us as glorious. And the text doesn’t treat this as some curious opinion God has. It doesn’t say, “the inheritance God thinks is glorious.” No, it says “glorious inheritance,” like the thing in question is objectively glorious. And Paul is praying that the Christians he writes to may know “the riches of His glorious inheritance.” He wants them to recognize that they, as Christ’s possession, have become glorious.

What is glorious about us? I think the phrases on either side of this one answer that question. First, there is “the hope to which he has called you” – God’s reliable promise to bring us into His glory. God chose us to “be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1: 4), and when God decides to do something, it is as good as done.

The other thing that makes us glorious is “the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.” God’s power has already started working miracles in our lives. He has raised us from death in our sins to life. And just as Christ was raised from death up to heaven where he is now seated at the father’s right hand, God will continue to raise up until we too are given heavenly authority.

Part of me wants to stop and qualify this saying, “of course, we’re not there yet. Christians do terrible things, just like everyone else, and in many ways we are far from glorious." This is true. But what God is making us is far more fundamental to who we are than anything we do. Christ may not have fully come into His inheritance yet – that is, He may not yet have complete control of our lives. But that doesn’t change the fact that our core identity has altered – we ARE Christ’s glorious inheritance.