December 23, 2015

Wednesday: O Emmanuel, our king and our Lord, the anointed for the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

            The final O Antiphon for Advent focuses our attention exactly where it needs to be. We sometimes tend to think of Christmas as Jesus’ birthday, and, as a simple way to understand the event, I suppose that’s alright. Yet the Scripture would draw us to a deeper reality. He is the Word of God, co-existent with the Father from eternity, chooses to take on human flesh and to dwell among us as one of us. That is so different than the other religions of the world. In ancient Greek mythology, the gods might assume the form of humans for a while to work their mischief. The same thing is seen in some Hindu myths. In other religions, say, for example, Islam  the gods are so far different that they remain ‘on high.’ But we are Christians because the creator God chose to become Emmanuel, the God who is with us, in the person of His Son. He didn’t simply dwell among us for a while; He took our very nature onto Himself to redeem that nature and in so doing honored our nature more than it has been honored since He Himself made us in His image on the sixth day. Now, we look forward to the Day of Restoration, when our full humanity will be restored and we will be as He is.

(I write these devotions to bring the gap between the Sundays, to keep us focused on God's Word when we are not all together. Tomorrow and Friday are holidays with opportunities to hear God's Word corporately. Therefore, no devotions until Monday. )