Musings and Contemplations

The Hope of the Nations

Luke 2:10-11 ESV
Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Isaiah 52:7-10 NRSV
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy; for in plain sight, they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

John 1:1-14 NLT
In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He existed in the beginning with God.
God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.
The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.  So, the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

Matthew Henry
To be a Christian indeed is to believe on Christ’s name; it is to assent to the gospel discovery, and consent to the gospel proposal, concerning him. His name is the Word of God; the King of kings, the Lord our righteousness; Jesus a Savior. Now to believe on his name is to acknowledge that he is what these great names bespeak him to be, and to acquiesce in it, that he may be so to us. Believing in Christ’s name is receiving him as a gift from God. We must receive his doctrine as true and good; receive his law as just and holy; receive his offers as kind and advantageous; and we must receive the image of his grace, and impressions of his love, as the governing principle of our affections and actions.^[1]

The Seventh “O Antiphon” – Emmanuel
O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.

Andrew Brashier
[Jesus] is the Word of the ever-living Father who spoke the cosmos into existence. He is the Word who breathed life into the first Adam’s breast and shall soon take breath in his own breast as the New Adam. He is the Word who delivered the law to Moses through his divine, pre-incarnate finger on the tablets. He is the Prophet promised by Moses and the One greater than John the Baptist who shall herald his coming. He is the King, whom the nations rage against. Yet he is also recorded in today’s antiphon as “the hope of the nations and their Savior.”[2]

HEIDELBERG CATECHISM Question #35
What does it mean that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary?
That God’s eternal Son, who is and continues true and eternal God, took upon Himself the very nature of man of the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, that He might also be the true seed of David, like unto His brethren in all things, sin excepted.

HEIDELBERG CATECHISM Question #36
What benefit do you receive from the holy conception and birth of Christ?
That He is our Mediator, and with His innocence and perfect holiness covers, in the sight of God, my sin wherein I was conceived and brought forth.

Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.[3]

^[1] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 1917.
[2] https://anglicancompass.com/o-emmanuel/
[3] Prayer for Christmas Day, Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 2019, p. 600.