O Come Emmanuel: An Advent Study

Preface and Acknowledgments

Growing up in a small midwestern town in an even smaller United Methodist church, Advent didn’t really mean anything to me. I could recall the Advent wreath, that circle of greenery with candles that we lit in December, but what it meant escaped my notice. The month of December was marked with too many other concerns: the constant shopping and wrapping of Christmas presents, the endless parade of special Christmas events and parties at school and church, and the regular cycle of family holiday traditions. Of course, the reason for the season was always squeezed into that crazed Christmas schedule. The church was there to remind us to remember the birth of Jesus. I assumed that Advent was a countdown till Christmas. After all, most of the Advent calendars sold in stores featured twenty-five days just like my family’s countdown-till-Christmas calendar. That was the extent to which Advent was meaningful to me.

All of that changed for me during my first year in college. Through some strange circumstances, I found myself as a freshman college student in an upper-level class on Jesus and the Gospels. As I spent the semester reexamining my beliefs about God, Christianity, and my vocation in the world, this class opened up a whole new vista on the good news of Jesus Christ. I began to see how the story of Jesus’ birth was not the start of a new story but the fulfillment and climax of a story already in progress. I learned how the story of God through the Old Testament formed the background for the story of the first Christmas. I learned that the story of Jesus did not begin with his birth in Bethlehem but on the first pages of Genesis. Many of these insights came through my close study of the Gospels in that college class. This initial excitement of understanding the New Testament in light of the Old Testament inspired me to continue to study the Bible in higher education for the next thirteen years. And it has continued to inspire me as a pastor and a professor to this day.

But this new reading of the Bible was also enlivened by new religious experiences. One of the many eye-opening moments of understanding Jesus’ place in God’s great story came at an Advent service. As the semester was slowly winding down and the air turned cold with the onset of winter, I attended my university’s Service of Lessons and Carols. The old stone church was adorned with wreaths, evergreen trees, and the glow of candles. As the students slowly shuffled into the pews, a hush fell over the crowd as the university choir began: O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.

As verse after verse of the beautiful hymn washed over me, the threads of the Bible were knit together into a beautiful tapestry. The Advent hymn was speaking the language of the Old Testament, the longings and the hopes of the people of Israel, a prayer of expectation for the arrival of Jesus the Messiah. The hymn was all about understanding Jesus within Israel’s story! Despite having heard the hymn before in church, I had never really understood its imagery until that moment. It was the combination of Advent, a close reading of Scripture, and this old hymn that opened my eyes to the significance of the gospel of Jesus Christ in a fresh way. Like the three numbers necessary for a combination lock, these three items worked together to unlock a greater depth to the story of Jesus.

Of course, this combination of the Christian year, Scripture, and hymnody is not an experience unique to me. For centuries, Christians have learned the good news and grown closer to God through singing, reading, preaching, and praying. But as the culture has become increasingly secular and some churches have begun to abandon their traditions for what is trendy and entertaining, this form of Christian formation has ebbed away. While there are signs that the tide is turning in churches with a return to Christian tradition, this book is my attempt to share in this process of revitalization through ancient practices.

My hope and prayer for this book is that it will invite you to a deeper engagement in this Christian tradition through song, Scripture, and the Advent season. The work is an Advent study that looks closely at the traditional Advent hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The hymns of the church are one of the ways that Christians learn the story of God. We sing God’s great narrative of redemption in the language of Scripture when we sing the old hymns. O Come, O Come Emmanuel captures the sense of longing and expectation of the Advent season and gives us images and language that help us express the significance both of the birth of the Christ child and our world’s continual longing for Christ’s return.

The book is designed as a personal devotion or small-group study during the Advent season. It opens with a brief introduction to the liturgical year and the place of Advent in the cycle of the Christian seasons. Each of the remaining chapters will then focus on a verse of O Come, O Come Emmanuel with eyes toward the larger story of Scripture that the hymn reflects. The goal is that readers will learn the depth of God’s great story contained in these short little verses in a way that will help them live more faithfully in the world. Each chapter concludes with discussion questions to help churches use this book as a small-group study.

This book would not have been possible without the support and encouragement from a number of persons. The initial idea for this book began years ago while I was a doctoral student at Emory University. The support of my colleagues, mentors, and professors in seminary and graduate school have grounded my work and served as an important conversation partner as I have grown in my vocation. Alongside the academic community, I am grateful to the congregations of Niota United Methodist Church and Cedar Springs United Methodist Church, who allowed me to test many of the ideas, stories, and explanations during the Advent seasons of 2019 and 2020. Many read early drafts of the book and encouraged me to seek publication. Special thanks to the folks of Wipf & Stock, especially Kara Barlow and Ian Creeger, who helped edit and prepare this work for publication. I am thankful for my colleagues at Tennessee Wesleyan University, especially Sean Hayden and William McDonald, who have served as excellent conversation partners and mentors through the publication process. I am also thankful for the many Holston conference clergy who have supported my work and ministry, especially Rev. Mark Flynn, who affirmed the quality of this book when I questioned it. I am grateful for the support of my family. I am blessed to have grown up in a great family—my parents and siblings have supported my faith journey through the years, even when I was unsure of the places I was going. Most of all, I am grateful for my wife, Mary, who has served as a constant source of support throughout the writing and publication process. She is not only a wonderful wife and mother to our two boys but also a powerful witness and minister of the gospel. She introduced me to the Jesse Tree, another Advent tradition, which has served as an important way we have tried to grow closer to God together as a family. This book is dedicated to our two boys, who I pray will grow closer to Christ throughout their lives.

Reader, may this work awaken your own Advent longing for Christ’s return, even as you see in the child in a manger the fulfillment of God’s great story for the world.

In Christ,

Rev. Dr. Alex Thompson

Introduction

Learning to Keep Time

How we talk about time often reveals important things about our society. Humans have always been fascinated with keeping track of time in various ways. The ancient rocks of Stonehenge, for example, were put in place to track the changing of the seasons. Similarly, for centuries farmers have structured their lives around a clear cycle of planting and harvesting with the seasons marking off the daily rhythm of life. More recently, the keeping of time has been shaped by new calendars. In Illinois every summer, I was bound to hear a farmer discuss his corn by noting it should be knee-high by the Fourth of July. The farming season has now been supplemented by civic holidays on a social calendar. Farming is judged by the civic event of the Fourth of July. For most of my childhood, it was the school calendar that gave structure to my family’s life. Vacations were predetermined by the dates for spring and fall breaks. The schedules of sports seasons often shaped the daily routine of the week. Football season was followed by basketball season just as fall gave way to winter. Spring brought with it track and baseball. There was a sort of rhythm that the school calendar gave to my life.

I still experience this rhythm every year as a college professor. The academic calendar gives a sense of expectation as the heat of August signals the return to school. There is a new energy and excitement that greets the start of each semester. But as the semester approaches its end with the onset of finals, a shift occurs on campus. As December rolls around, the colder weather matches the students’ hunkering down to complete their final exams and papers. A somber and serious tone grips the school community. The arrival of spring, culminating in the end of school in May, is greeted with the joy and celebration reflected in the graduation ceremony. The academic calendar structures time at the university and creates a rhythm of life with its own accompanying emotions.

The church has long been aware of the importance of time in structuring life. Christians have their own calendar shaped by the life of Jesus. It is marked by the two most significant moments in the life of Jesus. Easter stands as the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. It is the day that changed the world because of God’s raising of the Messiah to new life. The other significant day is Christmas, the birth of Jesus commemorated on December 25. Both celebrations are expressions of great joy and excitement in the church. These two dates are like the twelve and six on a clock. They split the cycle of every year into two halves. Around these two points, the church then adds other celebrations. There are days celebrating minor events in the life of Jesus, like Transfiguration Sunday, as well as more important days like Good Friday and Ash Wednesday.

But alongside these special days (the so-called holidays because they are holy days) are also seasons. Seasons are periods of celebration and preparation. Seasons often start or end with these special holy days. For instance, the celebration of Christmas on December 25 begins the season of Christmas (sometimes called Christmastide or Christmastime), a twelve-day season that ends on January 6th with the