O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is my favorite Christmas song of all time.
Maybe it’s the sweet and plaintive melody. Maybe it’s the chord progressions which I don’t know all that much about musically, but which I can totally appreciate as a non-musician.
Maybe it’s Emmanuel.
God with us.
God is with us!
Even when this song calls for rejoicing, it’s subdued, and I think that’s how my life is. I think that is why I relate so much. I have been called forth from captivity, but that doesn’t erase the time spent captive. A trial is at an end and all things are made new, but it doesn’t erase where I’ve been and what I’ve endured.
O come, o come, Emmanuel.
Come to the exile, to the lost, to the lonely. Come and be God among us.
Today, I listened to a message about God incarnate and it… it was more than I could properly take in. Part of that was a surge of anxiety at a really inopportune moment. Part of it was my own preoccupation with my after-church plans. I want so badly to be a good and generous host and for my home to be a place of comfort and replenishment. Not a bad thing, but perhaps the wrong thing to be focused on when I was.
Despite my split focus, God incarnate is powerful. O come, o come, Emmanuel. Be that in me. Let me be Christ in my world to those around me.
Then You crash over me and I’ve lost control but I’m free
I’m going under, I’m in over my head
And You crash over me, I’m where You want me to be
I’m going under, I’m in over my head
Whether I sink, whether I swim
It makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head
Whether I sink , whether I swim
It makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head
I’m beautifully in over my head
I’m beautifully in over my head
In spite of my own distractions and my own preoccupations, in spite of my own ability to sink or swim (I’m a sinker), in spite of everything, this song still echoes in my heart and mind. Emmanuel. God with us.
It is humbling and a comfort. So much of both. What am I that God is mindful of me? My human struggles that God should care? (Psalm 8, paraphrased like whoa)
David said that [1. I think. Whatever. I don’t know who wrote every Psalm, so it’s a good guess, okay?], and David had far more right to do so than I do. I don’t have any idea what Jesus was subjected to in his time on earth, but today? Today, I doubted and felt chastened in my own heart for doubting. I have no idea whether the Christ dealt with mental illness. I somehow doubt he did. But there must be something there that can give me that common ground. Right?
Casey/At says I need to ask whether Christ is living within me enough to tie him to my experience. I don’t know. I feel adrift here, because even at his most terrified of what was to come, I feel like it wasn’t unknown to Jesus. Where my biggest source of terror is that I don’t know. Anything. What was. What is. What is to come.
I suppose that’s where faith comes in. In so many ways. I have to believe that he knows not only where I am but that he will also be Emmanuel. God with me. Through whatever valley of the shadow of death I am walking through. Emmanuel.
God with us. God with me. Please.