Christ, the hope of all Nations, who await his appearing

Categories: hymns

Date: 14 December 2004 20:06:47

O Emmanuel,
Rex et legifer noster,
expectatio gentium,
et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos,
Domine, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel,
our King and Lawgiver,
the one awaited by the gentiles,
and their Saviour:
come to save us,
Lord our God.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14

and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,' says the LORD of hosts.
Haggai 2:7

Two wonderful promises in the old Testament that find their fulfilment in Jesus Christ.

Immanuel -- God with us. A great mystery indeed, that the eternal becomes man. As John Donne, one of my favourite poets, put it:

Twas much that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.
Holy Sonnets, XV

The Desire of All Nations. The Messiah: the One who would free people and rescue them. The One people were waiting and hoping for. The One in whom all human life finds its centre and meaning. And He has come, and will come.

As we move ever-nearer to Christmas, the hymns sung stir up expectation within me. As I listen to Handel's Messiah in the car as I drive around, the longing and expectation find voice in the words of Handel, and the Scripture verses he has quoted and used to such great effect. We are moving towards something...a great event is about to take place...the hope for which we have longed for

And as I reflect on Christ's Incarnation, I also remember His Promise to return again: a time when God shall 'be all in all'. And when, as St Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 18:

then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'
'O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?'

Amen: come, Lord Jesus!