O Come Emmanuel 12: Christ's Come

My final Christmastide reflection on that beautiful carol, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, focusses upon its refrain’s final line:

…Emmanuel, shall come to Thee, O Israel.

They were all waiting, everyone of them: Adam. Eve. Noah. Abraham. Moses. David. Isaiah. Pretty much every Jew who was not an aristocratic Sadducee. They were waiting for God’s promised Deliverer who would undo the Curse and restore our race to Eden. The ‘Hows’, the ‘Wheres’ and the ‘Whens’ they did not know, but they still believed and still hoped.

And then He came.

God kept His promise, and Emmanuel appeared, the commemoration of whose earthly birth we mark this day. One of the most tragic verses in scripture is from John 1:11:

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

All those centuries of searching and waiting, but when He came, few knew Him, recognised Him or received Him. If that state describes you today, then call out to Him, for His is nearer than you think. He is, after all, our Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’. Emmanuel has come to thee, O Israel, and to the whole world, too. 

This is the real meaning of Christmas.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

From the text of the 1851 translation by John Mason Neale of the twelfth-century hymn Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861)