O Emmanuel
God with us
Friends,
Today is December 23rd. The final O Antiphon. O Emmanuel, God with us.
For the past week, the Church has been praying these ancient prayers, each one naming something we lack and calling on God to come:
O Wisdom... O Key of David... O Dayspring... O King of Nations...
And now, on this last day before Christmas Eve, we pray, O Emmanuel—God with us.
Not God far away. Not God waiting for us to get our lives together. Not God withholding presence until we’re worthy of it.
God with us. Right here. Right now. In this.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. The waiting is almost over, liturgically speaking. The baby will be born. The carols will be sung. The celebration begins.
But here’s what I keep thinking about as we stand on this threshold: Emmanuel doesn’t mean “God fixes everything.” It means “God with us.”
With us in the mess.
With us in the grief.
With us in the waiting, that doesn't end the way we hoped.
With us in the darkness, we can't dispel on our own.
Look at the verses of the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”:
“...and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here...”
“...disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight...”
This is the language of people who are not okay. People in exile. People mourning. People surrounded by death’s dark shadows. People waiting for something, Someone to come and make sense of the senseless.
And yet, right in the middle of naming all that’s broken, the chorus erupts:
“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”
Not "Rejoice, because your prayers were answered."
Not "Rejoice, because Christmas makes everything better."
Not "Rejoice, because you'll get what you've been waiting for."
Rejoice, because Emmanuel shall come.
The promise isn’t that our circumstances will change. The promise is Him. His presence. His coming into our darkness, our exile, our unanswered prayers, our thorns, not to necessarily remove them, but to be with us in them.
This is the difference between the prosperity gospel and the actual gospel. The prosperity gospel says: “Rejoice, because God will give you what you want.” The actual gospel says: “Rejoice, because God gives you Himself—and that is enough, even when nothing else changes.”
It’s a command to find joy not in getting the resolution we’re praying for, but in the promise of Emmanuel—God’s presence with us, whether our prayers are answered the way we hope or not.
Christmas will come. We will light candles and sing carols. We will celebrate the Incarnation, God breaking into our world, not in power and triumph, but as a vulnerable baby born, laid in a feeding trough because there was no room.
Christmas has always been about God showing up in the least likely places. In the mess. In the middle of empire and exile. In a stable that smelled like animals.
In the places where we least expect Him.
In the moments when we feel least ready.
In the darkness we thought would never end.
So if you’re walking into Christmas carrying something heavy—unanswered prayers, chronic suffering, the ache of what’s missing—you’re not doing it wrong. You’re doing it exactly right.
You can mourn in lonely exile and sing “Rejoice!” in the same breath.
You can feel death’s dark shadows and trust the Dayspring is coming.
You can enter Christmas not okay, and still proclaim: “Emmanuel. God with us.”
Not God who promises to fix everything.
Not God who guarantees our prayers will be answered our way.
God, who promises to be with us. Right here. Right now. In this.
And somehow, mysteriously, that is enough.
Merry Christmas, friends. I’m honored to wait—and to hope—with you.
Rachel
P.S. The next episode releases Sunday, December 28th, the Fourth Day of Christmas and Feast of the Holy Innocents. We'll be in the season of light by then, but we'll still be learning what it means to carry both sorrow and joy. I'll see you there.
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