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.
Advent is a season of dawning and anticipation. One of the great carols of the season – Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel – sings of the prophecies upon which we’ve been reflecting.
The key word, Emmanuel, is a prophetic key itself. In Isaiah 7, in the midst of Israel’s rebellion, God pauses the calls to repentances and warning of judgment to remind the people that there is hope eternally for all who trust in the Lord. Thus, the Lord pauses the warnings to proclaim, “14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
And what is the significance of that last word? Well, when the angel reminds a struggling Joseph of this prophecy (see Matthew 1:22-23), the angel proclaims the long-promised truth: Emmanuel means – and is a sign – that “God is with us.”
Is that your prayer? “Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel”? Come Jesus into my life? Come Lord and be with me?
Well, it was surely Israel’s prayer.
Israel needed – needed desperately – to be rescued. The prophecies and warnings of God through Isaiah would not be heeded. Like a good father, God would discipline Israel. For their long term good, he’d let a foreign power literally carry them away from their rebellion and into a season of literal exile. They needed to be rescued. They needed to be ransomed.
Ransom is a financial term. It means buying back – literally from captivity – which is just about the very next line of the song. Israel understood their plight. They “mourn[ed] in lonely exile.” They needed to be bought back. They needed to be redeemed – another financial term for buying back.
And first, they would be brought back. The Persians would defeat the Babylonians – Israel’s conquerers. Then God would convince King Cyrus, the Persian, to send the Israelites home. Yes, first the Israelites would be brought back.
But that’s not what ransom or redeeming means. The deeper need is to be bought back. We don’t need just a change in our temporary, physical location. We need a permanent change in our spiritual condition. If we’re going to be truly free, somehow someone needs to pay the penalty for our sin … eternally.
That’s what Israel (and all creation) was (and is) ultimately longing for. And they were longing for it whether they knew it or not. Sin is our greatest problem. It is our greatest bondage. Sin is what ultimately keeps us from peace, joy, and hope.
Sin, indeed, is what keeps us from God. And we have no Emmanuel, no true and meaningful experience of God being with us, and long as our sins distract us from the life that is life and God who is light.
So what Israel needed, whether they knew it or not, was not to be brought back from a physical, political exile, but to be bought back from the spiritual exile caused by sin.
What they were longing for, whether they knew it or not, was the Redeemer – the Messiah who in dying would pay the penalty for their sins.
What they were longing for, whether they knew it or not … No! What you are longing for, whether you know it or not, is the Redeemer – Emmanuel! God with us! – who can end our exile, put us back in relation with God, and restore to us peace, joy, and hope.
In Christ’s Love,
a guy who’s mourned
in lonely exile and wants
to sing in joyful worship
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