The Fifth Hope, The Hope for a New Beginning

O come, O Key of David, come

and open wide our heavenly home.

Make safe for us the heavenward road

and bar the way to death's abode.

The economy, inflation, crime, religious freedom, immigration, abortion, health care, and foreign policy top the list of concerns for United States voters as we get ready to retire the 2023 calendar and hang 2024 on the wall. Western culture is deteriorating because of moral and political division and racial and class tension. The world in which God placed humanity to watch and protect in line with His nature and character is missing one key component—shalom. Shalom is the Hebrew concept of peace rooted in the nature and character of God. Shalom is a just peace and can be described as the state when everything in the world is as God intends the world to be. Since humanity's rebellion against God (recorded in Genesis chapter 3), it has become increasingly apparent that humanity cannot fix the world—we cannot make heaven on earth. At the awareness that we and the world are broken, we meet the fifth stanza and the fifth hope of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. The fifth hope is the hope for a new beginning.

We cannot remove our sin and live sinless in our power. Neither can we fix the brokenness in the world and create heaven on earth. The creation narratives in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 clearly show that humanity was created for the earth. The earth was to be stewarded by humanity. Humanity was to watch and protect the earth (Genesis 2:15) as priests of God, the king. God would bring shalom in the world with the invited involvement of his royal priests. Amy Sherman describes human flourishing as God aligning all things with how He intends life to be with the invited help of humanity. Instead, humanity rebelled against God and traded the path of flourishing for the path of death.

The path of death or mortality resulting from human rebellion against God affected all of creation. Paul explains how creation hopes for a new beginning in Romans chapter 8. "For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God's children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the first fruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:20-23, CSB).

Creation looked upon the baby born in Bethlehem. The very rock of the ground underneath Mary and Joseph's feet waited longingly for the Savior to be born. The hope for a new beginning does not focus on what Jesus is saving us from but rather on what Jesus is saving us toward. "Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment" (2 Corinthians 5:4-5). As followers of Jesus, our hope is certain, and we have the Holy Spirit as the down payment, assuring us that a new beginning is here now and will come completely! Because the Savior was born, because he died in our place, because God raised Jesus from the dead and seated Jesus at His right hand, for all who surrender to Jesus (and for all of creation)—the old has gone, the new beginning has arrived (2 Corinthians 5:17).

"My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing his life into mine!" (Galatians 2:20, TPT).

Refrain:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

shall come to you, O Israel.