Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/1433252
28 DECEMBER OUR GOD WITH US O come, O come, great Lord of might, Who to your tribes on Sinai's height In ancient times did give the law In cloud and majesty and awe. Philippians 2:5-6 Over the past two years, many of us have witnessed tangible evil, experienced unparalleled pain and trauma, and been shook by an equally personal and global terror. We've watched our loved ones taken away from us, sometimes without even a goodbye, we've seen the making of widows and orphans firsthand, and we've seen some multiply others' suffering through words and actions. In times like these, it's hard to feel like God is really with us. Was Jesus really our Immanuel—our God with us? More than ever, we crave a Lord of might that will come to us in love and grace to snuff out all of the wickedness that is suffocating creation. Like many during the Second Temple period, the Immanuel we seek is one that invades our space with a sword, striking our foes, liberating our land, and giving us the peace and solidarity that was once ours. But in our woeful travails, we come to meet our crucified Messiah, the enfleshed Lord that humbled Himself to bear the pain and death that was not His own. From atop a cross, our great Lord of might was revealed to the world in majesty and awe. With each striking of the nail, our pain and suffering is retroactively heard and graciously answered, and our agonizing desire for justice is found in an empty tomb. Triggered by traditions, such as hymns and decorations, Advent has for centuries been analogous to the pains of the past. But in this time, we also anticipate the bir th of the baby in a manger— destined to victoriously conquer the preeminent weapon used to prompt our pain and suffering, death itself. When confronted with ever ything of the past two years, we may be tempted to lift our own swords, to slay our own enemies, and take back whatever we seem to have lost, but this is not our Immanuel. Our God was revealed in swaddling clothes, waged war while hanging on a tree, and pronounced victor y with a stone rolled away. It is in this that we find our hope, and it is in this that we answer the assaults of evil. Rejoice! Rejoice! Our Immanuel has come, and through our blood-soaked testimonies He is made known. Grayson Hiatt, Student, Master of Divinity O Come, O Come Immanuel John Mason Neale (1861)