1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our
Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “You always lose something in the translation.” That’s what people
say. Once at a Lutheran Church in Texas
a native Spanish speaker once gave a long prayer at a special dinner held by
the congregation. Then the prayer was translated into English. Somehow, the English
translation wasn’t as long as the Spanish original. Why? The translator explained that he couldn’t
remember everything that had been said in Spanish, so he gave the Reader’s
Digest version in English. The Reader’s Digest version is what we
have in the English translation of stanza 3 of the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
2.
In the Middle
Ages, stanza 3 was sung in Latin at Vespers in the monasteries on Dec 18, six
days before Christmas Eve. Each day of the week before Christmas, one stanza of
the hymn would be sung, ending on Christmas Eve with what today is stanza 1. But the translation has been changed. Rev.
John Mason Neale, who translated the Latin into the modern version, was working
with four line stanzas, so he couldn’t fit everything in. Our version today
says: “O Come, O come, Thou Lord of might, Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times didst give the Law In cloud and majesty and awe. Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O
Israel!” (LSB 357:3) Rev. Neale’s version is fine. But, the
original Latin version, based on Is 33:22, literally goes on to say, “Come
with an outstretched arm to redeem us.” I’d say that’s a big omission, especially
from a Lutheran point of view. Isn’t that how we want Jesus to come? Come,
Lord, with an Outstretched Arm to Redeem Us.
3.
Rev. Neale left
that part out, but we won’t. “Come with an outstretched arm to redeem us.” Our text, Is 33:22: “For the Lord is our
judge; the Lord is our lawgiver;
the Lord is our king; he will save
us.” Even the name of the one who comes is significant. The Lord,
the Lord, the Lord. In English, we
sing, “O come, O come, Thou Lord of
Might.” “Lord of might” is an
English translation of the Hebrew, Adonai.
Adonai is the name for God used here
and in the Latin version of our hymn. It’s the third most common name of God in
the Old Testament. Interestingly, like another
name for God, Elohim, Adonai is plural. So we could sing, “O come, Thou Lords of
Might.” But we don’t, and why not?
4.
If anything
is clear in the Bible, it’s that there’s one God, not many. “You shall have no other gods before me,”
Yahweh thunders from Mount Sinai in the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:3). In Deut 6:4
we’re taught, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
Then in Is 43:11, God speaks, saying, “I
am the Lord, and besides me there is
no savior.” The Bible wants us
to know there’s only one God. So what do we do with names of God that are
plural like Elohim and Adonai in stanza 3 of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”?
5.
Maybe you’ve
heard Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain say something like, “We have decided” to do this or that. Everyone
knows there’s only one queen, but when she speaks she refers to herself as “we.” Elohim and Adonai are plural
because they reflect the revelation of God as the Holy Trinity, one God
who always exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So when we
sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” for
Adonai to come with an outstretched arm to deliver us, we pray that the triune
God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—would come to save us. And he does! In the
person of Jesus, Adonai comes in all the ways we pray for him to come in stanza
3.
6.
“The Lord
is our king,” Isaiah says. “O come, Thou Lord of might,” we sing. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the same God
who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush joins himself to a human body
in the womb of the Virgin Mary and is born in Bethlehem as King of Israel and
heir to the throne of David. And since the true Israel includes all the
redeemed who make up the Church, Jew and Gentile alike, this prayer is already
answered. The King born to Mary rules at this moment through his Word and
Sacraments in the hearts of all who welcome him by faith.
7.
Adonai, the
Lord, comes also as Lawgiver: “On Sinai’s height, In ancient times
didst give the Law, In cloud and majesty and awe.” When he appears to Moses
on Mount Sinai, Adonai reveals his Law. He carves it on stone and hands them to
Moses, who brings them down the mountain for Israel to learn and obey. But, when Moses comes back, Israel is already
ignoring the Lord, so Moses smashes the tablets. If I were Moses, I think I’d have thought
twice about that. After smashing the Ten Commandments, which God had engraved
with his own finger, Moses doesn’t have them anymore. He climbs all the way
back up the mountain to get another set. The Law of God on tablets of stone doesn’t
seem to have much effect on God’s people. They pretty much ignore it and go
their own way. What’s needed isn’t the Law of God written externally on
stone, but the Law written on human hearts.
8.
And that’s
what Adonai does when he comes to each of us personally. When you and I are
baptized into Jesus, we’re filled with the Holy Spirit. Alive to God through
the Means of Grace—Word and Sacraments—the Holy Spirit begins writing the Law
of God on our hearts. So then it’s no longer just commands engraved on stone
tablets, but it’s the new delight embedded in the flesh of our own renewed
hearts. Things are different, now that
Adonai has come and we’ve been baptized into him. Now God’s Law is written on
our conscience. Now Adonai rules from within us. So, a prophecy of
Isaiah is partially fulfilled: “the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord” (Is 11:9). I say partially,
because complete fulfillment awaits the return of Christ on the Last Day.
9.
But, we also
pray that Adonai will come with “outstretched
arm and redeem us.” That’s the part that Rev. Mason’s translation leaves
out. The Lord of Might terrified Moses in the burning bush and terrified the children
of Israel with threats, lightning, thunder, and smoke on Mt Sinai. But, this
Lord is also the God who redeems his people.
Can you think of some examples of the outstretched arm redeeming God’s
people? In Exodus, God’s people are saved when they are caught between the Red
Sea and Pharaoh’s army. The people cry out to God, and the Lord tells Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to go forward.
Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that
the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.” Moses stretches
out his hand over the sea, “and the Lord
drove the sea back by a strong east wind . . . and the waters were divided. And
the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground” (Ex
14:15–16, 21–22). That’s the strong outstretched arm of the Lord
redeeming his people. Later, the
Israelites are attacked by Amalek in Exodus 17. Joshua and the army go out to
fight, and when Moses raises his arm, the army of Israel prevails. That’s
the strong outstretched arm of the Lord redeeming his people.
10.
But, that was
all in the Old Testament. Where do we find the outstretched arm of the Lord
coming to redeem his people in the Gospels? It’s two outstretched arms, beaten
and bruised arms, bloody and dirty arms, arms nailed to the cross. It’s the
arms of Jesus, Adonai, who has come to redeem us through the shedding of his
own blood on the cross. Humiliated as a common criminal, our Lord Jesus allows
himself to be crucified, that you and I are delivered from the slavery of sin. That’s
the strong outstretched arm of the Lord redeeming his people.
11.
A sainted Lutheran
professor at one of our church body’s seminaries, Dr. Robert Preus, once told
his class about an encounter he had with a person who described himself as
“born again”—someone who thinks that unless you remember the day you invited
Jesus into your heart, you aren’t really a Christian. This person asked Dr.
Preus, “When were you saved?” Dr.
Preus thought for a moment and said, “I
was saved when in eternity past God elected me in Christ. I was saved when
Jesus died for my sins on the cross. I was saved when as a baby I was baptized
into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I was saved each time I
heard this again and believed. I was saved when I received the body and blood
of Christ in the Lord’s Supper for the forgiveness of my sins. I will be saved
when I am with Christ in heaven. And I will be saved when Jesus comes in power
and glory at the end of the age to raise me and all the dead.” I hope the person who asked Dr. Preus got the
point. Being saved doesn’t depend on the moment you ask Jesus into your heart.
Being saved is everything God has done for you in Jesus from his electing love
in eternity past to when Jesus comes in power and glory at the Last Day to
raise the dead and restore his creation.
12.
This last
part of Adonai’s outstretched redeeming arm we also look forward to as we sing
stanza 3 of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
You and I aren’t in heaven yet, though we can taste it in Holy Communion when
we partake of the Paschal Feast surrounded by saints and angels in heaven. And
we have not yet seen Jesus come visibly in glory, with the voice of the
archangel and the trumpet call of God, to redeem us from this fallen world and take
us into the perfect world that awaits us.
13.
But that day
will come, because it’s God’s plan and because he answers all prayers that are
asked in accordance with his will (1 Jn 5:14). Confident this is God’s will
because he tells us in his written Word, we pray boldly these words from a more
literal translation of the Latin O Antiphon for today: “O
Adonai and ruler of the house of Israel, Who appeared to Moses in the burning
bush, And gave him the Law on Sinai: Come with an outstretched arm and redeem
us.” Prayer: O Adonai, mighty Lord
and Ruler of the Church, come as you have promised with outstretched arm. By
the cross of Jesus and his resurrection, redeem us from all the sin, death, and
darkness of this world, that we might enter the holiness, life, and light of
your kingdom. In his name we pray. Amen.
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