The Sounds of Christmas, Hope (O Come O Come Emmanuel), Christ Church Sermon, November 30, 2025

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Thank you for listening.

Today's scripture is Isaiah 7:14.

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore, the Lord himself will give

you a sign. The virgin will conceive and

give birth to a son and will call him

Emmanuel. Hear what the spirit is saying

to the church. Thanks be to God.

>> Thank you, Abby. You can all go back to

your seats, friends. It was good to see

you up here. I have no joy mix for any

of you, but you still have to listen.

Sorry.

The trees are up. The music has shifted

a little bit. The spirit feels a little

bit different. That waiting, the

anticipation is already filling this

space. And I hope it's beginning to fill

our hearts as well. The season of Advent

has definitely begun. That culmination

of which will be of course the entry,

the celebration of God's entry into the

human race. And as we anticipate that

birth, the important thing is that we

don't wait for it passively. We wait for

it actively with hope and peace and joy

and love. This year we're going to

examine those four elements through the

lens of some of the most well-known and

beloved Christmas hymns. We start today

with hope. And there is no better hymn

in my opinion that encapsulates hope

than the hymn Oh, come Oh, come

Emmanuel.

Before we look at the power of hope that

is found in that hymn, a song that

implores God to literally come and be

with us. That's what the name Emmanuel

means after all, right? God with us. We

need to understand the lens through

which this hymn was written. It was

written from the standpoint of people in

the Old Testament who were longing for

hope. Specifically, it was written about

the Israelites. And if there was anyone

who needed hope ever, it was the

Israelites. They faced all kinds of

political issues over hundreds of years,

but their biggest issue by far was their

slavery to sin. and the ramifications

that came from that. About 20 years ago,

I led a Bible sto Bible study on the

story. And the story is a condensed

version of the Bible. The publishers use

selected passages of scripture to tell

the narrative of the Old and New

Testament, but they did it in 31 books

instead of 66 books. They left out some

of the more minute details like how many

cubits the temple was and how many lamps

there were in the temple. and they

condensed some of the longer passages

into smaller ones. The end result is a

portion of scripture that reads a little

bit more like a novel, making it easier

to understand and easier to see some of

the patterns that happen throughout the

course of those testaments. And what I

found out quickly when I led this study

is that a significant portion of the Old

Testament, even when you take out some

of the minute details, is the Israelites

messing up. I had read a lot of the

Bible up to that point where I led the

story. But it was much easier to see

that destructive pattern of behavior

when you took out some other things. The

pattern that became abundantly apparent

was that the Israelites would do

something awful that offends God. Then

bad things would happen to them because

they screwed up. Then they would come to

the realization that on their own they

could not get themselves out of the mess

that they had created. And so they would

cry out to God for help. And God in his

infinite capacity for forgiveness would

take mercy on them and would rescue

them. And in turn they would promise to

serve God and be faithful to God

forever.

Then inevitably every single time they

would stray again. It never took long

before they would decide that they knew

better than God or could do better than

God. And so they made decisions and

acted without consulting God. And before

you knew it, they were in a pickle that

they couldn't get out of. Again,

when you read the story and you see this

pattern repeated over and over in the

Old Testament, you realize after the

eenth time, it happens that the

Israelites were never going to be able

to break their pattern on their own.

They tried a lot, but ultimately they

needed something to permanently rescue

them from themselves. More accurately,

they needed someone to break them free

for good from the sin that was the root

cause of their destructive behavior, the

sin that was ruling and shaping their

lives.

Enter the promise of a prophet. The

prophetic words that we heard in Isaiah

that Abby just read for us appear again

in the Gospel of Matthew 1 23 which says

the virgin will conceive and give birth

to a son and they will call him Emmanuel

which means God with us. This time we

hear those words in the context of a

dream that Joseph had when the angel

visited him and told him that he needed

to take Mary as his wife because she was

pregnant with a baby that would save all

of humanity from their sins. In other

words, as soon as she gave birth, God

would be with us.

This little baby was the embodiment of

everything that the Israelites had been

looking for. This baby was the tangible

reassurance of hope from a God who

wasn't content to just sit in the

heavenly realm and fix things, but who

loved the Israelites enough to enter the

world and to live among them and

experience humanity in all of its beauty

and all of its brutality.

This God with us would change

everything.

It was this longing that the Israelites

had for a savior that inspired a group

of Benedicting Gregorian monks in the

8th century to write and start chanting

something called the O antifons. One a

day from December 17th to the 23rd.

Antapons, just so you know, are short

sung lurggical verses. And the ones that

the monks sang in that time period of

the 17th through the 23rd of December,

they all began with the word O. And so

over time, these antifons became known

as the O antifons. And these O antifons

were powerful and packed with a lot of

information and a lot of wisdom in their

short verses. Each one examined the

coming of Jesus through the eyes of the

Israelites. Each one implored Jesus to

come and each antifon described a little

bit about the promised savior and who

that promised savior would be taken

directly from scripture. See if this

starts to sound familiar. The first

antapon that the monks sang during

advent was oh Emmanuel. As we already

said this asks God to be with us and

draws from the words of Isaiah as they

appear again in the gospel of Matthew.

The second antifon was, "O wisdom." Paul

reminded the Corinthian church in his

first letter to them that Jews demand

signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we

Christians preach Christ crucified,

Christ, the power of God and the wisdom

of God.

Third, O antifon was, oh Lord. This time

Paul was speaking to the Romans when he

reminded them of Christ's lordship

saying in part Christ saying in part of

Christ that he was appointed the son of

God in power by his resurrection from

the dead Jesus Christ the Lord.

Fourth O antifon oh root of Jesse's tree

the prophet Isaiah spoke of life coming

from a dead stump the stump of Jesse.

And it says in that scripture in Isaiah

that from his roots a a branch will bear

fruit. That branch is Jesus. And this

was a prophecy of Jesus's death and

resurrection and the kingdom that would

spread from that. Is this starting to

sound familiar a little bit? Fifth O

antifon. O key of David. We hear one

more time from Isaiah. This time about

how Jesus is the key to the house of

David. And so that house of David is the

family lineage of which Jesus was a

part. What Jesus opens no one could shut

and what he shuts no one can open. So in

other words it means that he unlocks the

door to heaven for us never to be shut

again. And he closes the doors of hell

to us never to be opened again.

Oh daypring was the sixth antifon. In

the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is called the

rising sun, the daypring that will come

to us from heaven. In other words, Jesus

is the light of the world, coming to us

to rescue us from the darkness of sin

and death. Finally, the seventh, O

antifon, oh desire of nations. The Old

Testament prophet Haggi spoke about how

God says that one day 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.

Everyone from all the nations, no one is

excluded, will be ransomed or set free

by Jesus.

When you put all of these, oh antifons,

together, I hope you can hear the depth

of longing that is contained within

them. Put yourself in the place of the

Israelites who we just said were

completely broken and utterly lost on

their own. Can you feel the desperation

of a people who were crying out for help

and for hope, for a sign that God would

save them?

They are longing for Jesus whose name we

are told in the Gospel of Matthew will

be the hope of all the world.

In the 1100s, those o antifons all seven

of them were crafted into a poem. And

then 600 years later in the early 1700s,

they were put into a metrical verse.

They were still in this metrical verse

when English minister John Mason Neil

discovered them in the mid 1800s. Neil

had been ordained as an Anglican pastor

in 1841, but he had chronically ill

health and that kept him from serving a

pastorate of his own. So instead, he was

appointed to serve as the director of

Saxsville College, which despite its

name, was not a university of higher

learning, but a home for elderly men. It

actually still exists today.

Despite his infirmities, Neil had a

heart for service. And this position

allowed him to work directly with

people, but it also gave him a lot of

time to explore his other passion, which

was reading the word of God.

It was while Neil was studying at the

Saxsville College that he came upon

these oantifons. And it was he who in

1851 put them together as a hymn. And

then Thomas Helmore, who was a choir

master, pair paired Neil's hymn, his

words, with a well-known tune. And

finally, in 1854, the hymn, Oh, come O

Come Emmanuel, as we know it today, was

born.

It took centuries, but these monks and

poets and hymnwriters and choir masters

combined to give this beautiful picture

of hope that we find in Jesus Christ,

Emmanuel, God with us.

Together they captured that delicate

balance of longing and lament on one

hand and rejoicing on the other. The

verses are all about who the Israelites

believed that Jesus would be and how the

world was in despair without him. They

are sung in a minor key which helps to

convey this somber tone of introspection

and longing for hope that would embody

the promise that would meet the

Israelites needs.

Then comes the refrain that follows

every single verse. And it is this burst

of rejoice, rejoice, sung in a major

key, much more optimistic and bright, as

if there has been a resolution.

And there was a resolution. The

resolution for the Israelites was the

hope that Jesus was coming and would

rescue them. That's why the refrain ends

with the words, "Emmanuel shall come to

thee, O Israel."

It wasn't Emmanuel might come to thee or

Emmanuel could come to thee. It was

Emmanuel shall come to thee. God with us

was definitely coming to be with them.

It was that hope that led to rejoicing.

So, where does all of this leave us in

2025?

The Israelites, a people so in need of

hope, saw that hope come to fruition in

the person of Jesus Christ. What about

us? We know that Jesus has already come.

We believe that. That's what we're

celebrating this season. But why do we

continue to sing this particular song in

our worship services today?

I think we sing it for two reasons.

First, it's a reminder that hope was

once fulfilled.

The promised and the longed for child

did come. Born to a teenage mother in a

stable. He did save people from their

sin. And despite his humble beginnings,

he went on to become arguably the most

powerful figure in human history.

But the other reason I think we still

sing Oh come O come Emmanuel today is

that it is a reminder for us to hold on

to the hope that the savior who came

once before will indeed come again

because goodness knows we still need

him.

The monks who wrote the O antifons wrote

them while looking at scripture from the

perspective of the Israelites. When we

read scripture through our perspective,

I think we will come to see that despite

the fact that we know who Jesus is and

we know for a fact that Jesus came to

save us, we still have some of the same

issues as the Israelites.

Just like them, we are still stubborn.

Just like them, we turn away from God.

We are Israel.

And so when we sing for Emmanuel to come

and ransom Israel, we are singing for

Jesus to come again and to set us free

too.

The movie The Shaw Shank Redemption was

released 31 years ago. It was based on a

1982 nolla that was written by Stephen

King and it tells the story of Andy

Drain, a banker who was convicted of

murdering his wife and the man with whom

she was having an affair. And he was

sentenced to life in prison for the

crime. As the years go by, Andy

maintains his innocence in the killing

and he becomes a model inmate until one

day after years and years of being in

prison, he is thrown in solitary

confinement for two weeks because he

commandeered a record player and he

broadcasts a recording of Mozart to all

of the prisoners without permission.

when he rejoins the prison population

after those two weeks in confinement.

And he sits down to eat with some of his

inmate friends. And they ask him if this

punishment of two weeks in solitary

confinement was worth the crime. And he

says, "Absolutely."

When the music had played and seeped

into his soul, it reminded him that

there are places inside of him that the

warden and the guards cannot touch.

Sacred places where hope still lives.

Andy's friend Red, who was sitting at

the table with him, scoffs at this

notion, and his reply to Andy is, "Hope

is a dangerous thing."

These two men have a vastly different

understanding of hope. For read, his

understanding was grounded in the things

of this world. And when he placed his

hope in fellow man or in the justice

system, for example, they always let him

down. And so over time, he learned that

to protect his heart, he could never

afford to hope.

Andy's hope, however, was grounded in

something that no person on earth could

touch. It lived inside of him. And

although he lived behind bars, his soul

was free because of this hope.

Hope is a dangerous thing when we choose

to put it in the things of this world

like our careers, our relationships, our

political leaders, or dare I say it, our

sports teams. These things will

inevitably always eventually let us

down.

But when we put our hope in a baby in a

manger, nothing can destroy that. When

we place our hope in the second coming

of Christ that will restore and redeem

us, nobody can ever touch that hope. It

is what carries us through the hardest

of times, the times of grief and

longing. It's what allows us to sing,

rejoice, rejoice, even when the world is

as dark as night and everything seems to

be falling apart.

The first verse of Oh come O come

Emmanuel asks Emmanuel to come and

ransom a captive Israel that mourns in

lonely exile until the son of God

appears.

And then it calls us to rejoice because

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Like the Israelites, we are held captive

by sin and we need someone to pay our

ransom. We are mourning the presence of

Jesus while we are in exile away from

him. But one day when the son of God

appears again, our hope will come to

fruition and we will rejoice.

I want us to sing together the first

verse of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. This

time hearing it from our perspective. I

can get a little pitchy, so I'm going to

need you to sing it with me.

Oh come, oh come Emanuel

[singing]

and ransom captive [singing] is

that warns [singing] him only exile

until [singing] the son of God

[chant] appears.

Rejoice, [singing]

reje,

[singing]

[chant]

[singing]

oh,

[chant]

>> when we place our hope in Jesus, we will

never be disappointed.

Emmanuel shall come again to thee. God

with us will come again and for that we

rejoice because no one can ever take

that hope away from us. Thanks be to

God. Let's pray.

God, we give you thanks for this hope

that exists within us. That hope that

comes from Jesus who has come and will

come again. That hope that no one else

can touch. It is so tempting to want to

put our hope in the things of this

world. Remind us throughout this Advent

season to instead always and only put

our hope in you. You are the only thing

that will never let us down. You sustain

us. And it is because of that hope that

we can rejoice always.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.