I don’t know about you, but I love Christmas carols, well most of them anyway… you can probably keep the line in Once in Royal David’s City about standing around dressed in white (verse 4), but when they’re good, they’re very, very, good. Take the lyrics to It Came Upon The Midnight Clear for example, poetry of such beauty and imagery that it always cause me to worship. Another carol that I’ve been reflecting on recently is ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’. Emmanuel – Emmanuel, of course, meaning ‘God with us.’
Recently I read an article from the Guardian newspaper, that well known wellspring of theological thought! The author of the article was describing a visit to St. Catherine’s chapel in Dorset, situated on a hilltop above the sublime Abbotsbury Sub-tropical gardens. The writer described encountering an overflowing feeling of Immanence in the building. From the same root as Emmanuel, Immanence describes the state of being present; God as part of, and permeating all of His creation – not separate from it.
At Christmas time we get the opportunity to consider afresh the idea of God with us, in the form of the infant saviour. Can you imagine the immanence of God in that stable? Like the Guardian writer in her deserted building, you must have been able to feel it; not just those emotions that flood the senses with a newborn baby, but a sense of something so powerful that the shepherds abandoned their very livelihoods, and wise men travelled from the Middle-East just to be there.
Just imagine, the God of the universe, here with us, through choice. There may be some relatives who inspire fear in us when they utter the words “I’m coming to stay” at Christmas, but Jesus, come to earth to be with us? To stay with us? Here, and now? Where do I sign up!
O come, O come, Emmanuel…
If you’ve made it this far, thank you, and I wish you all the very best for Christmas and the New Year. I’ve attached a video below. I appreciate it may not be to everyone’s taste, but it asks the questions; what if, indeed, God was one of us?
