Free, thine own from Satan’s tyranny; From depths of hell Thy people save, And give them victory o’er the grave.
~ O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
God bless 15th century writers. We know nothing of their eloquence.
Although the writer of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is unknown, we can safely assume based on the articulation of this song, that this long-dead person knew a thing or two about the enigmatic nature of Christ’s incarnation. Particularly in regards to the deeply specific fulfilling of prophesy. It's with each Christmas that comes and goes that we can be reminded of the precedence that prophesy plays in the Christmas story.
Isaiah is a prophetic book ultimatley all about God and His plan for the world. And the first half deals mostly in judgement towards a wayward Israel. By the time we get to the end of chapter 10, it says this,
"Behold, the Lord God of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low. He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One"
In other words, the arrogant and rebellious will be felled like tree's in a forest. They will be properly humbled - chopped to their roots by a strong and Holy God. But we are not left with this discouraging picture of a dismal, empty forest of destruction. Nestled in these verses of judgement begins chapter 11, continuing the imagery for us to see what the Lord is saying.
"A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord.” Isaiah 11:1-2
Out of a dead stump will come a living branch. The perished stump of Jesse was invaded with sin and yet from it would come David's kingly line. An alive-and-well branch was still promised by God to come from this family stump (Jeremiah 33:17). Hope abides here. Hope, not earned nor deserved. After a long and disheartening time of sin and tumult, Israel is promised something new. The Lord reveals part of the story He's writing.
Being on this side of history gives us the benefit of knowing in great detail what this hope was all about. The generational family lines that made way for the birth of Christ would begin in the person of Jesse. Just as the prophesy taught. His line ran through over 40 generations (according to the the gospel of Luke). Not one forefather or mother was an accident in paving the way for Jesus. No matter how complicated they may have been. And they certainly were complicated.
Tim Keller expounds on the nature of the genealogy of Jesus, in his book Hidden Christmas,
"Here, then, you have moral outsiders - adulterers, adulteresses, incestuous relationships, prostitutes. Indeed, we are reminded that even the prominent male ancestors - Judah and David - were moral failures. You also have cultural outsiders, racial outsiders, and gender outsiders. The law of Moses excluded these people from the presense of God, and yet they are all publicly acknowledged as the ancestors of Jesus."
The family-line of Jesus is storied and abstruse to say the least. Which, I think, is the way we like it. Especially in these current times. We sure love a good rags-to-riches or sob-story.
Have you ever noticed how often reality TV shows spend time focusing on the story of the contestants? Whether it's America's Got Talent or Survivor or any home makeover show, the producer's of that show will always zero in on the trials of those competing. And the reason is obvious; the more the viewers are moved to pity someone, the more we'll want them to win. The sadder the story, the more votes. We live in a time where adversity is king. Whoever has the greatest hardships gets the most attention.
And all this is fine, until it's not. Because when oppression is currency, everyone wants a piece. Now our identity becomes about it and most dangerously, our whole purpose in life becomes about number one - Me and my experiences.
We as human's are very good at thinking the world spins around our big heads. Our accomplishments, our hardships, our needs, our sorrows. Our stories. How could we not? Every day we walk around in our own bodies. We'll experience this one life seeing out of one set of eyes. It will only be our own mind that observes the world around us. So it makes sense. However when we return to the genealogies of the Saviour something about it challenges our self-focus.
It pulls us out of our narrow experience and advise's us in who this story is about. Making us recall whose mission we are on. Because if the story is about me, the mission is about me. My cause, my desires, my works.
Although each person in the grand family-line of Christ has their own meaningful story - in many cases stories of oppression and tragedy. Although their lives mattered, in the end, all that remains is just their names in a line of other names. We can read from their histories and learn from their mistakes. We can take in the details of their lives and enjoy the narrative. But their little life is only there to serve a larger, more important purpose. And the same goes for each of us.
We see this most interestingly in the name of Joseph. The reason being - the ancient bloodline from Jesse came to a screeching halt with Joseph. As we know, he was betrothed to Mary, and she gave birth to Jesus. But she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit, not by Joseph. And yet the prophesied genealogy from Jesse came through Joseph. There would need to be an adoption; and it was so. And when Joseph adopted Jesus in faith, his life served a much more essential part of the grand narrative about the family of God. Indeed through this action God proved the legitimacy of all adoption - that the bonds of family have little to do with blood and a lot to do with spiritual covenant and the fear of the Lord.
Joseph played his part to tell a larger story.
It's fascinating to ponder just how baby Jesus, the king of the world, needed to be grafted into a heritage of faith. And a messy one at that. He was accepted into a pretty toxic family-line; an acestory as defective and pernicious as it gets. But one that was prophesied and planned perfectly by an almighty God. All the blemish's we see with each name in the genealogy is a reminder of the nature of humanity. All family tree's are stricken with sin and tumult. Each branch is riddled with it. We all need Christ to be brought into our families and make whats dead alive.
But perhaps more importantly, our family history, is not the final story. No matter how long the dysfunction has been going on, the story isn't over yet. The prophesy of Christ coming reminds us each year that God is the main character. And after we've endured yet another go-around the sun seeing great difficulties in our families, communities and the world, we are reminded that God is not on our timeline. His clock is not our clock. We cry for His return and wait for the prophesies of his second advent splendor. But we do so having been freshly soaked in the first advent incarnation.
During this festive season, with each day that passes, as we make plans, bake cookies, watch movies, buy presents, we await Him again. Each carol sung, passage read and candle lit is a surrender to the larger narrative that we can't see. We watch and anticipate knowing that our wise and sovereign Saviour tarry's for a reason. One we can't know, but one we can surely trust in the way that Joseph and Mary did.
This is why when Christmas arrives, we rejoice. Not because our little chapter of His great story is perfect, but because an old prophesy came true. As Isaiah and Jeremiah declared, the Christ would come and give life and fruit to old, dead roots. And He did. In Him was and is the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.
And then on the Cross He freed us from satan's tyranny. And one day soon, He will free us from this world and ourselves and take us to Him. Through the little lives we have, He's telling His story.
Out of dysfunction, He brings mission. Out of self-focus, He brings identity in Him. And out of dead stumps, He brings new life and active fruit.
O come Emmanuel.
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night; And death's dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
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