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 Son of God (poem)

“Behold the Lamb of God,” the Baptist cries

The Christ repents of evil not his own

He steps down to the chilling stream that once

Gave way before another Joshua,

That those he led might reach the promised land

Now he descends into the surging deep

The waters rush above his head, and then

He rises, breathing deeply once again

The cloudy curtain of the heavens tears

A Voice proclaims him God’s beloved Son

The Lamb up to the slaughterhouse is led

To bear the weight of evil not his own

Guilt pulls him down toward death as mockers shout

At him to save himself, but he will not

That those he leads might reach the promised land

Thus He descends into the damp, dark grave and waits

To rise. But now He yields His dying breath

The sacred curtain of the temple tears

A man declares, “This was the Son of God.”

A Tale of Two Nations

An article I wrote about the paradoxical nature of the United States inspired by C.S. Lewis' "That Hideous Strength" is up on the Breakpoint website.

A Review of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy

Last week, the Colson Center posted a review of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy that I wrote on its Youth Reads page. The page is dedicated to young adult fiction, and while the space trilogy isn't written for young adults, I read it in high school.

Reflections on Biblical Studies Part IV: Some Solutions

In my last post, I discussed the low view of the Bible held by many scholars in my field, Biblical Studies. This view raises a number of questions for me, which I’ve grouped into two broad categories: questions about the reliability of the Bible and questions about the value of academic Biblical Studies. Here, I’d like to present some of the answers I’ve come to.

First I’d like to examine questions related to the truthfulness and consistency of the Bible. I have three ways of dealing with them, which I’ve summarized in phrases starting with r words, because I can!

The simplest step is to reject the assumptions of materialism held by some scholars. Jon Collins, whom I quoted above, made the argument in his introduction to the Old Testament that the stories about Elijah and Elisha must be fictional because they include miracles, which don’t really happen. Similarly, he wrote concerning Genesis 3, “The appearance of a talking snake should alert even the most unsophisticated reader to the fictional nature of the story.” But if you don’t presuppose that supernatural answers are impossible, there’s no reason to assume that these narratives can’t be historical. Those who believe in miracles do not take the mere fact that something is a miracle as evidence that it didn’t happen.

This is a pretty straightforward solution, but it doesn’t solve every problem, because not every event in the Bible is a miracle. We need other approaches to deal with questions about the natural events it records.

It helps to recognize what exactly is at stake in the specific question we’re dealing with. There are some traditions about who wrote what in the Bible that go beyond what the Bible actually says. For example, tradition says that Moses wrote Genesis, along with the rest of the Pentateuch, but Genesis never says it was written by Moses. So if it were proved that Genesis was written by someone other than Moses (a question I am not currently taking a position on), that wouldn’t mean that the text itself is in error.

It’s pretty common for Biblical scholars to consider Biblical books to be composed of multiple books. The most common example of this is the Documentary Hypothesis, which says that the Pentateuch is actually composed of five sources identified by the letters J E D and P. But scholars make similar moves with other books, too. We don’t necessarily have to oppose all of these moves. If 1 and 2 Samuel, for example, are composed of multiple sources, this doesn’t really affect our faith. God can inspire several writers and editors just as easily as a single one.

But there is still a problem. The reason why scholars see a need for multiple sources is because they think the text as it stands is contradictory. And while a true document can be composed of more than one source, a real contradiction does mean that at least one of the conflicting statements is false. So the next and most difficult way to deal with questions about the Bible’s accuracy is to try to resolve those contradictions. This is the approach I took in my earlier series on 1 and 2 Samuel. There, a superficial reading showed the texts to be contradictory, but looking at them in more detail showed that they not only didn’t conflict but also complemented each other well.

The second set of questions I raised was, if academic study of the Bible does not promote faith, why bother with it? Two reasons come to mind.

First, academic study can deepen our faith, make us more confident that the Bible is in fact God’s word and lead to applications.

I discussed this with my father a few months ago, and he compared it to music theory. When performers are playing or singing, they are not usually thinking about music theory, but their knowledge of the theory does improve their performance. Similarly, knowing theology might not directly change your Christian practice, but it will do so indirectly.

For example, my understanding of the idea of kingship poses a potent challenge to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “cheap grace,” an idea that is sadly prevalent in many churches today. Israel’s problem, as I understand it, is that they want a messiah (remember, the word “messiah” means someone who is anointed, such as a king) who will deliver them from the consequences of their sin without asking to repent. Sound familiar?

And the second reason why evangelical Christians need to engage in theology, particularly Biblical studies, is that other people who don’t take the Bible seriously are doing so. C.S. Lewis’ comments about philosophy apply equally well to theology.

 “If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But, as it is, a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now — not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground — would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” 

Reflections on Biblical Studies Part III: The Plot Thickens

This is the third post in a series on my first year of my master’s program.

My first year of graduate school has been interesting and fruitful for me. However, I’ve also been a bit disillusioned by it. I came in somewhat naïvely thinking that Biblical Studies would approach the Bible primarily as a serious theological text with the goal of understanding precisely what it taught. In fact, I discovered much scholarship focused instead on seeing the Bible in political and historical terms, as a document that tells us about its time and its writers (who frequently aren’t the same people tradition says they are).

This certainly isn’t a bad thing. The Bible was written by human beings and for human beings (although it was also inspired by God). There is very much to be gained from seeking to understand the Bible the way its original readers did. However, focusing exclusively on political and historical influences can lead to overlooking broader theological points. And in practice, these approaches tend to undermine not only the authority but even the basic accuracy of the Bible. It is presented like any other historical source, and as no more reliable than, say, The Illiad.

Frankly, I was shocked at certain scholars’ skepticism and dismissiveness toward traditional views of the Bible and even toward the text itself. I read things like the following:

“No type of writing could possibly contain the inconsistencies, doublings back, apparently aimless changes of style, of titles for God, of narrative tone, that these books [the Pentateuch] encompass. For one man to write such a text, he would have to be mentally incoherent or disturbed, or – and here source criticism really begins – he would need to be using a lot of already existing material which, for whatever reason, he was unable to change, and setting it down in all its inconsistency.” – John Barton

 “Rather than ask whether a text is revealed (and by what criteria could we possibly decide?) it is better to ask whether a text is revelatory, whether we learn something from it about human nature or about the way the world works. A text that is neither historically reliable nor morally edifying, such as the book of Joshua, may be all too revelatory about human nature.” – John Collins

As a Christian Bible scholar, these types of comments raised a lot of questions. They basically fall into two categories:

1. Are these scholars correct in saying that the Bible is incoherent and self-contradictory? That would mean that at least some of it is untrue, and therefore not the word of God.

 2. If the Bible is reliable, the fact that scholars can spend their lives studying it and come away with the conclusion that it isn’t raises questions about their methods. Does this mean that academic study of the Bible is a waste of time, or worse, dangerous to faith?

Of course, to completely answer these questions, even in my own mind, would take much longer than a year. But in my next post, I’ll share the answers I’ve come to so far.

Reflections on Biblical Studies Part II: Great Blessings

This is the second post in my series on reflections from my first year of studying theology in graduate school. You can read my first post here.

My first year of graduate school was filled with some great opportunities. As planned, I took two semesters each of Greek and Hebrew. It was intense. I would not recommend starting both languages at the same time if you can avoid it. However, I did learn a lot and am now reasonably competent with both languages. That is, I can read “real” texts with extensive help from dictionaries.

I also had a chance to TA and get a taste of teaching at the college level. Since this is one of my possible career paths, it was helpful to get a taste of what teaching is really like. Chronologically, the class covered everything from the Gospel of Mark (probably the earliest book in the New Testament) to Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). Obviously we didn’t read everything important that was written during that time, but the class did give me a chance to read some classics that I hadn’t gotten to yet.

During my first semester of graduate school, I took a class on early Christianity with John Cavadini. He’s a very interesting and compelling lecturer, and he really focused on the theological ideas of the thinkers we were dealing with. We covered the first through fourth centuries, which had some really great theologians (and some not-so-great ones, by which I mean heretics).

I also had a wonderful class on Genesis with Gary Anderson. We focused mostly on the story of Joseph, which was different from most Bible studies on Genesis I’ve been in, which focused on the beginning. We read a book that I’d highly recommend, Jon Levenson’s The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son. His book deals with a reoccurring pattern of sons being sacrificed and then restored to their parents that appears throughout the book of Genesis. The obvious example of this pattern is Isaac, when Abraham nearly sacrificed him on Mount Moriah. But Levenson also brings in Abel, who dies because God prefers him to Cain; Jacob, who is also prophesied to rule over his brother but has to flee his home because of it (and then returns); and Joseph, the beloved son whom his father believes to be dead, but who actually survives and saves the entire family. Levenson doesn’t go into the fact that Jesus also fits this paradigm (nor would I expect him to, since he’s Jewish), but as Christians, this is exactly what we should expect to see in the Old Testament. Genesis tells the Gospel story again and again, though it does this in a way that is subtle and easily missed.

Thus, I learned some wonderful things during my first year of graduate studies. However, I also struggled with some aspects of the field of Biblical Studies, which I plan to discuss in my next post.