With a spirit of new beginnings and hopeful possibilities, I am offering you a brief musical reflection each Monday during Advent. This week, consider the carol “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It’s one of my personal favorites and one that Mike Wicker sang with handbell accompaniment on November 27, 2021. (See the service with the song here.) “Emmanuel” means “God with us”, and for that very reason, this carol resonates deeply within my soul.
God is with us when we celebrate and when we grieve, when we understand one another without words and when our words hurt others even unintentionally. God is with us in the glory of a sunrise and in the roar of ocean waves. God is with us when we are dripping with sarcasm and when poignant words flow from our hearts. God is with us in the mystery and in the doubt and in the scary possibilities for transformation that come to us only once in a while. God is with us... [your turn to fill in the blank]!
… and that’s why we sing. We sing because God meets us in our missed notes and out of tune instruments. God is with us when we don’t sing the same words as the people next to us. God is with us when we remember the melody and when we sing perfect harmony... and when we can’t do either! God is with us. It’s just that simple, and that’s why I hope you will hum or sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” for the rest of today or even this whole week... It’s a good one, St. Peter’s. God is with us. O come, O come, Emmanuel. Amen.
The Memory Garden at St. Peter's
Close To Home (That’s our Advent theme) & Together While Apart,
