Advent : O Come, O Come Emmanuel

During Advent we’re exploring the deeper stories behind familiar carols, beginning with O Come, O Come, Emmanuel—a song not of celebration, but of longing. This ancient hymn arises from the experience of exile, when hope felt distant and God seemed far from away. In this message Josh traces that longing through Israel’s history and into Matthew’s telling of Jesus’s birth, where Emmanuel—“God with us”—becomes a bold reimagining of divine presence under empire. Along the way, we’ll see how early Christians reread their scriptures to make sense of their experience of Jesus. And ultimately, we’ll discover that this carol invites us to name our own exiles and dare to hope in a God who can be found right in the middle of them.