O Come Thou Dayspring

“O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer

Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.”

(O Come, O Come Emmanuel)

The summer after my first year of college, I worked as an office assistant for the university’s Conference Services.  It was an easy job—just sitting at a desk in the residence halls and being available to handle questions and concerns from guests staying at the university.  It was easy, but the desks had to be staffed 24/7, which meant that once or twice a week I would pull a graveyard shift from midnight to 6 a.m.  Even if no guests were awake at that hour, I still had to be there in case of an emergency.

I remember those nights, coming in with a large cup of coffee, killing time with reading, journaling, or Facebook, even pacing the floors, hoping an emergency might actually happen to break the tedium. It often felt like an exercise in futility.

As the hours passed, I would keep peeking outside, looking for the first crack of dawn.  Dawn, or what our early English ancestors may have called dayspring, when the world would awaken anew. For me, the weary worker, the dawn signaled the end of fruitless labor and beginning of rest.

My friends, we see a world waiting in the darkness.  Not a day goes by that we don’t hear of some new violence, some broken home, some innocence lost.  We ask why these things happen, and why our own labors against them seem so futile.  The answers elude us, all is dark as night around us.

 “...To give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us.” (Luke 1:77-78, NKJV)

Zechariah’s prophecy in Luke 1 spoke of the coming of dawn for all mankind.  Humanity had lived a futile existence up to that point, living in sin and rebellion against God.  Some tried to make atonement through animal sacrifices, yet endless sacrifices could not repair the broken relationship between men and their Creator.  All was vain, endless toil until this point, when suddenly, the Light dawned.

The coming of the Christ-child heralded a new beginning, the beginning of hope for all men—the hope for a restored relationship with God.  Because Christ was able to repair this relationship through His death and resurrection, He brought us into the light of God’s presence.  We need not toil in vain any longer.  We need not sit in the darkness of confused minds and hearts bent towards evil, for the Dayspring has come! We can have new light in our lives through knowledge of God through His Word, fellowship with His presence through prayer, the wise guidance of His Spirit in us, and meaningful labor on earth that brings Him honor and praise. 

“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:11-12, NKJV)

Awake, my friends, and live in the light.

He Could Have Wowed Us

            He could have come down in a fantastic display of the divine meeting the mundane, with lightning and trumpets and a host of angels. Or, if he insisted on passing off as one of us, he could still have come as the “best in show,” the most exemplary human model, with beautiful face and dazzling charisma. He could have started in a palatial hall, in position to see and be seen, in a place of power where his status would command the respect of all.

            He could have wowed us, you know?

            He had the right. He would have deserved whatever he chose to take. And he could have won our attention through sheer majesty, beauty, spectacularity.

            Why not? He's the Son of God, for crying out loud. He's inherently and authentically...awesome.

            “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering.” (Isaiah 53:2-3) 
             Instead of relying on outward appearances, Jesus chose to come in quietly, into a humble position. He chose to become ordinary—the Son of God, the One and Only, became like the commonest of man. Nothing in his human nature drew men to himself. It was only the power of his Word and the authenticity of his presence that commanded obedience, yet this came only from those able to discern the divine character within the human form.

            Jesus' purpose was not to make his encounter with mankind easy for himself, but to be a model and example of the kind of follower God desires.  His life and death on Earth make it possible for us to become a new kind of person, characterized not by outward appearances but by the inner qualities of humility, purity, and wholehearted devotion to God.