Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Since the beginning of time, God has been speaking.
He spoke with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. To the serpent he said:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
And he spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12:
All the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.
Later, he spoke to the people of Israel in Genesis 49:
The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.
God continued to speak to Moses in Deuteronomy 18:
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.
Then he spoke to Isaiah in chapter 9 of that book:
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
And then to Jeremiah he said:
"The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah."
"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."
And then to Malachi, 450 years before Jesus was born, he said:
Suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come.
And then… Oh come
The people of God… Emmanuel
All of humanity, really… Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel
Waited.
And I imagine, somewhere along the line, maybe 332 years into this 450 year period, some punk Israelite kid spoke up and asked the question: What are we waiting for? What are we waiting for!?
You see, as we walk through this time of preparation for Christmas, the time traditionally called the Advent Season, we admit, acknowledge, and even celebrate that fact that we, like the Israelites before us, are in a season of waiting. And hopefully, in this season, we ask ourselves the important question: what are we waiting for? What are we waiting for!?
So if I were to ask all of you what you are waiting for, I imagine I would get a lot of different answers.
But focus for a minute, not on what you are waiting for, but you have waited for. Because, I think, if we look back through our lives, we'll begin to see a pattern emerge. Of all the things that you have waited for, and then received, have any of them brought you to a place where you felt like you've arrived. I'm guessing no—because you're probably waiting for something right now. And if anything that you'd received in the past had led to an actual arrival, then you wouldn't be waiting anymore. I find that my life is filled with seasons of waiting followed by seasons, not of arrival, but of more waiting.
Jesus proclaims the coming of his kingdom, but we're not in it yet. We're like the Israelites in the wilderness. For 40 years they wandered here and they wandered there but they never arrived. In the same way, we wait for this, and we wait for that, but we never find what we're looking for.
And so, if the things that we think of when we think about waiting, aren't—ultimately—what we're looking for. If these things thing's aren't—ultimately—the things that will satisfy our longing. Then what are we longing for? What are we waiting for!?
Come, oh come, Emmanuel! God with us.
Could it be that we're waiting for Jesus? Just like the Israelites for 450 years, we're waiting for Jesus. And everything that he brings with him.
So what does Jesus bring with Him? Peace, joy, and love. And since I've only got 2 weeks to talk about all of this, I'll talk about peace today.
Jesus came to bring peace. We can see it in the prophesies before He arrived:
Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.
And we can see it in the proclamations when he arrived:
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.
So what does this tell us? It tells us that whatever peace is, Jesus brings it. What's that bumper sticker? Know Jesus, know peace—No Jesus, no peace? Absolutely right—Jesus is the source of all peace.
But peace is not a feeling, as many Christians would have you think. Peace is not a state of mind, it's a state of a relationship. I can be at war with someone, or I can be at peace with them. Does that make sense?
Romans 12:18 says:
If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
Psalm 34:14 says:
Seek peace and pursue it.
Matthew 5:23-24 says:
If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
So, to put it bluntly, stop making decisions based on a peaceful feeling, and starting making them based on the way the decision will affect your relationships with other people. That is true peace.
"But that's not fair. You said, Jesus, that you were going to bring peace, but now you're just making me feel guiltier. You're putting more pressure on me. I want the peace that you bring to make me feel better, not worse."
This is the way I feel when God begins, again, to impress upon me that peace is about other people. That it's not about me. But when I feel this way, it's because I'm forgetting where we starting on this topic. Whatever peace is, Jesus brings it. Not you or me—only Jesus. That's why we're waiting for Him.
Oswald Chambers said this:
Whenever God's will is in complete control, He removes all pressure. And when we deliberately choose to obey Him, He will reach to the remotest star and to the ends of the earth to assist us with all of His almighty power.
Waiting
Peace
References
Waiting for Peace
Constant Forgiveness
But is grace only operating when we are conscious of "messing up"? St Paul is pretty stubborn about insisting that grace is an all-in-all and all-the-time kind of disposition and activity of God in Christ. In this sense, grace is necessary for every single moment of every day of our entire Christian lives.
Greg Goebel
If this is the grace that God shows, if this is how God forgives, then how are we to act? Is forgiveness something that we pull out of our pocket when we are wronged? Or when someone else apologizes? Or is forgiveness something that we have to walk in--every second of every day? We should be interacting with other people with forgiveness in the forefront of our mind. Forgiveness for the stray comment that offended us, but wasn't meant to. Forgiveness for the selfish thoughts and selfish actions. Forgiveness for the imperfections that are always present, but are not always seen. Constant forgiveness is the key to constant relationships in our lives.
Nick
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