Music Info
Far from Home
By Kai Engel
Chapter 3 / Warm | CC License
O Come O Come Emmanuel
By Salt of the Sound
Waiting For The Dawn | © Salt Of The Sound
Script
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This weekend is Saturday the 21 and Sunday the 22 December, beginning the fourth week of Advent.
Salt of the Sound sing, ‘O Come O Come Emmanuel.’
The mystery of Incarnation is not just the Christmas event that will take place on Wednesday. It is something to be celebrated in our day to day life. God comes to dwell among us every moment, and we have only to open our hearts in trust to welcome that precious presence. Sometimes we doubt, sometimes we close our hearts completely to ourselves, sometimes we fail to maintain justice and do what is right, and sometimes we don’t even know what to do, and as a result we miss a moment of grace.
Our reading this weekend from the Gospel of Matthew is the same we reflected this past Wednesday in the form of Imaginative Contemplation. This weekend, we invite you to spend some time with Mary and Joseph, who both provide us with an example of what we ought to do in order to experience ‘Emmanuel’, ‘God with us’.
Mary is found to be with child because she had accepted the words of the angel Gabriel. Joseph, her husband, is perturbed and plans to ‘dismiss her quietly’. How do you react when perturbing news is given to you?
What if this news is actually from God?
As you hear this reading again, notice how attentive Joseph is to signs of God in him and around him. He pays attention even to his dream; he does not want to miss a moment of grace.
Joseph wakes up from his sleep and, convinced that God has spoken to him, abandons his earlier resolve, and does exactly what the angel of the Lord commands. Can you learn from this the importance of trusting in the Lord’s will for you and take that brave risk of carrying it out? Joseph was concerned about the ‘public disgrace’. Sometimes accepting God to dwell among us may result in public disgrace. How do you want to accept God in your life this Christmas?
Talk to God now about your feelings. Ask for whatever you need to be like Joseph in moments of great doubt or fear.
O Wisdom, Lord and Ruler, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Rising Sun, King of the nations, Emmanuel. Come, Lord Jesus.