From Eden to Emanuel

situating the arrival of Christ in the story of scripture

I grew up celebrating advent in my small town methodist church. Every week I looked forward to the soft glow of barbie contoured candles and enjoyed the hymnal races towards the songs about Christ’s birth. Some of those songs were anthems in Latin (I got a quarter for every obscure verse I memorized) and others were soft lullabies accompanied by an out of tune amateur handbell choir made up of children with ill-fitting white gloves and robes we struggled not to trip over.

But my favorite has always been “Oh Come Oh Come Emanuel.”

As a child, the concept of a nation in captivity or exile due to sin and disobedience was beyond my understanding. Back then, I perceived exile as akin to a severe time-out, a punishment with an intensity I could scarcely fathom.

Or was it?

On the first Sunday of advent, we are encouraged to meditate on the concept of faith in the context of God’s people returning from exile into Roman captivity. What does it mean to have faith in exile and under oppression? It means to believe that God is faithful to keep his covenant, even when nothing goes as planned. Even when nothing we expect is panning out.  

But to do that, lets first talk a little bit about the story of scripture. Let’s situate Christ’s arrival within the broader narrative. What’s really going on? To know that we have to go all the way back to the beginning.

In the garden God created everything. Father Son and Spirit morphed and formed all of creation like children in a sandbox. The triune God filled and separated the skies and seas. They made humankind in their image and likeness, together. Humans were made to belong to God and creation and one another as a part of the created order. Why? Because God was championing shalom. Goodness. tov.

God wasn’t creating good things individually; God was creating goodness and harmony between and amongst creation.

God ordered everything, from the seasons to the sunsets, so as to foster harmony amongst the created order.

When Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit, their choice disrupted the ordering that fostered shalom. That culpable shalom breaking equated to sin entering the created order, and sin infected everything. Adam and Eve didn’t simply “do a bad thing,” their actions led to a state of fragmentation and separation between humanity and God and between humanity and creation, a state that has worsened and worsened.

Something that always sticks out to me when I think about this story are the fig leaves that Adam and Eve used to cover themselves with when they realized their nakedness. Fig leaves contain an enzyme that causes an allergic reaction. Fashioning them into clothing would have resulted an itching skin rash. God didn’t create those leaves to become clothing. But when we disrupt the ordering of things, when we choose what makes the most sense to us rather than depending on God, we wind up with hives on our asses. And I can imagine the double humiliation as Adam and Eve were likely burning and itching and scratching while also hearing that they were going to experience pain in childbirth and have to labor the ground as a consequence, respectively.

But God was gracious to Adam and eve. In order to preserve the possibility for restored-shalom, they were exiled from the garden, but God was with them. God replaced those allergenic leaves with animal skins, something that could actually protect their bodies from the elements. And instead of them dying that day— God revealed that through his promised Seed- evil would be crushed. Adam and Eve, and all of humanity were given hope in the promises and presence of God.

The Old Testament carries us through the stories of how the promised Seed, was passed down through the generations. And amidst inspiring examples of faith and the power of God, shadows of failure and shortcomings loom large. These repeated failures throughout the narrative echo a desperate cry for salvation, a yearning to mend the shattered shalom disrupted by the pervasive and insidious prevalence of sin. And it matters that we frame sin this way because a small view of sin keeps it individual-sized. But when we attempt to conceptualize sin as God does, inclusive of the overarching fracturing of harmony between humankind, and all creation, I’m not sure we could bear it. The reality is that injustice is sin. Exploitation is sin. Theft and violence and war and trusting in things that are not God- especially us- are sin. But God doesn’t want us to itch and burn because we were left to figure it out for ourselves… God wants goodness for his creation, because God loves what God has made.

Viewing the Old Testament as following the Seed of the Promise leads us to see how Israel is entrusted with becoming the keepers of the promise. Amongst a myriad of different civilizations and nations, they were supposed to point to God through the way in which they live and point to hope in the Messiah. That’s why all of these seemingly strange things are codified into law and there are these blessings and curses attached. Israel is supposed to pass down hope from one generation to the next. This group of people are supposed to represent what God is like to the rest of the world. NT Wright calls it God’s-plan-for-the-world-through-Israel. They are carriers of the promise that will bless the whole world- the messianic hope.

So, when Israel violated God’s covenant over and over, when they failed to represent God in the world and hope in the future promise they were exiled according to the covenant. Following warning after warning, they were judged and cursed according to God’s own law.

But God’s plan all along wasn’t to bless the world by Israel, but through Israel. And by the time we arrive in first century Rome, and the story centers on Mary as the current keeper of the promised Seed, we’re reminded that God always moves through a faithful remnant of believers— believers who put their hoped in the God that would restore shalom and reveal his faithfulness to the covenant established long before.

The irony of the song Oh come Oh come Emanuel is that the people in the story didn’t know how God would rescue them from their very real suffering. And in the year 2023, there is no shortage of similar desperation.

So my advent prayer is whispered to the tune of my cherished song, while pulling Christmas cookie recipes from that old methodist church’s cookbook— recipes from my childhood to pass down. This morning I’m humming it while rain gently taps the roof of my home, and my daughter naps on my office couch. She’s going to love these cookies

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“Be near be near God-with-us.

This sin-mess that the world is trapped in, crushing your creation, has been breaking your heart since the beginning.

But you came to be one of us, with us, for us, so that we could be together now and forever.” Amen.

As we journey through this season of advent, may we resist the urge to go through the motions, lighting candles and singing the hymns so we can say we did— but let us truly dive into the great narrative that echoes through time, and find our place in this story that is very much still unfolding. Because it is our turn, as the church, to be people of faith who rest in the truth that Hope has a name. God has fulfilled his promise. There is a new covenant, a covenant that extends to all people who believe.

I’d like to encourage you to reflect on your own journey, the disruptions of shalom you've born witness to, and you’ve experienced, and consider the moments when you, too, longed for Emmanuel

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In the quietness of this season, ask yourself: Where do you see glimpses of shalom breaking through the chaos of our world? Name them. Dwell on them. How can we, like the faithful remnant of old, be bearers of resurrection hope and as we advent for Christ’s promised return?

Feel free to share your thoughts, your favorite advent traditions, or the hymns that resonate with you.

May this advent be more than a countdown; may it be a rekindling of hope, and a celebration of the God who is with us, always.

As always, thanks for being here and supporting my writing.

—Liz