A Jon Post
I know it’s “that time of year” again. To be honest, I haven’t felt it so much. I don’t want this to be one of those depressing or move-everyone-to-pity-the-poor-African posts or anything… I just want to ask you all to pray with me.
This is my prayer.
O come… O come… Immanuel.
That’s a Christmas song and I find myself praying it often recently.
…From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave…
…Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight…
…And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery…
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
I sat with my wife with a man who just had surgery on his tumor and who lay in agony in the recovery room hundreds of miles from his family. He looked into my eyes and said “Thank you so much for visiting me. Yesterday, I saw some people in here who had family visiting them and I just looked at my empty corner of the room and cried. I knew I had no one to visit me. But you… you are my family. You came to visit me. Thank you.”
O come… O come…
Immanuel
My wife knelt next to a girl who shares her age. She is dying. She has no family except a sister who is very poor and cannot come to visit her. She cannot sit up by herself so whenever Layne comes her contagious smile lights up the room because Layne is the only one who will put her arms around her and help her sit up, if only for an hour.
O come… O come…
Immanuel
I often hold a specific little boy in my arms. He does his best to look healthy and strong but he limps, ever so slightly as he walks. He has deep black marks on his legs and his little body has wasted away from repeated yet futile chemotherapy treatments for his Sarcoma. He’s got one chemotherapy treatment left and then the doctors will send him home. They’ll send him home to die.
O come… O come…
Immanuel
See, there’s a beauty in all of this. All of these stories have a beauty. It’s told in the end of that song.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Immanuel will come. He will come. I know it’s trite and easy to say but when we live here in a reality that is so encompassed in pain, this is our hope.
Immanuel will come.
So yes, to me, to my wife, this is a very merry Christmas. It’s a merry Christmas because we know… we know that we can follow the plea of the title of that song
O come… O come… Immanuel
With the action at the end
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas.
Merrry Christmas From the Hellers