O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
This last verse is self explanatory in so many ways. It speaks of the longing that we have for a better world. It alludes to words first spoke to a weary and disillusioned people by the prophet Haggai:
6 “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7 I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. 8 ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. 9 ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
Haggai says this to the exiles who had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem and begun the work of rebuilding the temple. Some of those who remembered the previous temple wept because they remembered the former temple and its glory, and the new temple was nothing by comparison.
The returnees may have come back filled with enthusiasum from prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel who spoke of a golden age to come when the exile would be ended and God’s glory fill his temple. Yet the reality was that they were a tiny province in a vast empire given permission to rebuild a temple that was the shadow of its fomer self – a temple which God’s glory is never recorded as entering.
In such a context Haggai holds out the hope that Yahweh will one day return to his temple and it will be glorious, and from that place he will grant peace. At his first coming Jesus embodies this promise – entering the temple as a baby carried by his parents, as a child seeking his father’s will, and as a man cleansing it of those who would stop the prayers of others.
By his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave he shows the glory of God and gives peace for all who will receive it. His return will bring the fulfilment of these hopes – the transformation of the world and complete peace.
This is the hope we have, and this it is this hope which creates the longing ache in our hearts for what is to come. A longing that is beautifully and hauntingly echoed in the melody of the tune for O come O come.
This year, more than ever, we are reminded that we do not have everything. We cannot build heaven here and now. We cannot control our world. We need the hope held out in the message of Jesus.
So this year, this Christmas, come once more to the manger. Come and see the reality of God become man that we might become like him. Come and see the one who created all things become a baby, growing and living as one of us. Come and see the God who has walked in our neighbourhoods, who knows what life is like as one of us. The God who is with us, and for us.
Come and wonder once more, and then look up to the armies of angels who came to herald his birth, and realise that one day they will join him as he returns to make his home here. As he returns to make all things new and all things well. Look up and long. Look up and pray “Come Lord Jesus”.
And let that longing spur us on in the ordinary everyday lives to live differently, joyfully, expectantly and wonderingly. Let that longing spur us on to pray for signs of the coming kingdom to be shown in our land, in our towns, in our communities this day. Let us point the way to the coming King as we live lives marked by trust, by hope and by love.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 