Good Morning All,
Isaiah 7:14; “Therefore the Lord
himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel.”
This
is the last of the “O Antiphons”. They
are written with the intent of looking forward to the coming of Jesus. These prayers are to the return of Jesus far
more than to the coming of Christmas.
Our last antiphon once again, pleads for Immanuel to come.
O
Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the
nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O
Lord our God.
Once again we pray to Immanuel (or Emmanuel) to
come. As we do, we can look at his
coming in light of three ways.
First,
we remember his merciful first coming, as a child born in a manger. He came in this fashion in order to pay the
price for us. He came in this fashion so
that, as true man and true God, his death would be sufficient to pay for our
sins. We celebrate this event. We celebrate Jesus’ birth because it signals
a dramatic change in human history; God directly intervened to save us from our
sin.
We also
should remember that Jesus continues to come to us each and every day. He comes to us through His Word and through
His sacraments. He comes to us daily
with the comfort and the consolation that we seek. He comes to give us the assurance of the hope
of salvation and to keep us mindful that we are indeed God’s redeemed children,
loved and cherished by him.
Finally,
we truly do look forward to Jesus’ victorious return. We long for the time when our salvation is
made complete. We are saved, right now,
but we are not perfected. That will only
come with Christ’s return when He makes all things complete. It is that completion that we long for. This is will be the time when death, pain,
sadness and sorrow are gone; no longer will these plagues last any longer. We will return to the perfect creation. The corruption of sin will be gone
forever. This is our hope; this is God’s
promise to us. Jesus told his disciples,
and that includes us, that he would come back for us and we wait, fully
expecting the wonderful promise to be kept for us. We look to God’s gracious promise to bring to
completion the restoring of creation and our living with him in glory is our
hope. Come, O, come Immanuel.
God
of all mercy, we wait for your return.
Until then, keep us in your grace.
Be with those who do not know you and the love which you bring to our
lives and to our world. Grant us the
wisdom to proclaim your Gospel to all the world. Move us by your Spirit to reach out with your
love to those around us. Give us the
power of your Word to change the lives of others. Bless us and keep us. In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
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