Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Welcome to November—and Happy New Year! The church calendar resets November 29 with the First Sunday in Advent. Advent is a penitential time when we reflect on the previous year and our sin. But it is also a joyful time, when we eagerly await the celebration of Christmas. Emmanuel (literally meaning “God with us”) came to earth to forgive all our sins!
I am so ready for Advent. The year 2020 has been a long one. I know each of us has grown frustrated with the challenging situations we’ve had to deal with, with how others have responded to them, and—if we are truly honest—with how we ourselves have responded, too. We may look around at the world and wonder, “Where is God?”
God is with us.
About 520 years before Jesus was born, the prophet Haggai wrote how God’s people felt like the world was crumbling all around them. (The whole book is only two pages—read it sometime!) God’s people were ruled by the Persians, they no longer had their own kings, and the Temple lay in ruins. There was no silver or gold or other precious material left in God’s house. There was not even worldly peace in the land—God’s people were bitterly divided! Where was God?
Haggai wrote:
Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord… For I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts… My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the Desire of all Nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’”
God’s people got the message. They started rebuilding the Temple, and gathering the “Desire of all Nations” into it—gold, silver, other precious things. The Temple became again a place for worldly peace.
Yet the true Desire of Nations was not silver or gold, or even worldly peace. The Desire of Nations would come more than 500 years later, in the flesh, making real the promise that ‘God is with us.’ Emmanuel—God with us—was born on that first Christmas. He gives us Christians an everlasting peace.
- O come Desire of Nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind.
bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace
Rejoice, rejoice!
Emanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
LSB 357 “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
In Christ,
Vicar Stein