O come, O King of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind.
Bid all our sad divisions cease
And be yourself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Holidays have their ways of pouring salt into the wounds of broken relationships. The father who is absent. The sister who cut off contact. The marriage that ended in divorce.

We gather with loved ones, yet the one not there haunts us. Relational breaches cast their long, unforgettable shadows with particular pain on feast days when others make merry.

Often, even among those present, not all is well. The air in the living room feels colder than the December outside. There is ice at the dinner table. Petty quarrels, foolish rifts, sad divisions color Christmas. We give holly-jolly a try, but inside we ache, disappointed and unstable.

All Our Sad Divisions

For some, recent years have brought more strain — even more sad divisions than we remember in our lifetimes. Clearly, these rings of power in our pockets haven’t helped, but they are not the deepest cause. The seeds of such strife were sown in “the hearts of all mankind” long before smartphones and social media.

Our pride and idolatry have led to “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions” (Galatians 5:20). Our breach with the God of heaven — our sin — has produced countless cracks with our fellow humans on earth. And typically, the most painful are with family and dear friends. These are the people we’re most likely to see, or miss, at Christmas. Those who know us best often grieve us most.

As much as we feel the stings and discomfort of new divisions, we are not the first to experience the agonies of disunity.

Desire of Nations

We might not have a better Advent hymn than “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It so ably captures the angst of waiting for Messiah with its minor chords and pre-Christian longings. Yet it also anticipates Jesus’s second coming. And especially so in its seventh and final stanza, where we own the angst of “our sad divisions” as we wait.

The hymn would have us first look up from the divisions we find surrounding us: “O come, O King of nations.” Our sin toward God was and is the first and deepest breach. And the decisive healing of our horizontal separations will come first through vertical grace. No doubt, noble-sounding humans are ever at work for world peace. Their initiatives may produce some temporal, worthwhile good. But none of them, even the best, have lasted.

“The decisive healing of our horizontal separations will come first through vertical grace.”

So, first, we look up — to the one Jeremiah called “King of the Nations” (Jeremiah 10:6), the one who rules over all those who appear to rule over their respective nations. We look to the one who made all and is sovereign over all. To the one who knows all hearts and searches them and actually can change the inner person. We look to the one who does that, not just in captive Israel, but among every nation. Long did Israel wait for this King of Nations, but now their song is ours. Seven angels in Revelation 15 sing not only the song of Moses but also the song of the Lamb:

Great and amazing are your deeds,
O Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
O King of the nations!
Who will not fear, O Lord,
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed. (verses 3–4)

As Israel waited for the Messiah’s first advent, the nation anticipated God reigning over all through a coming anointed heir of David. And still today, we wait. Now, Christ has come and conquered our sin. He is risen and reigning at his Father’s right hand — and he will come again to rule fully and finally as King of the nations.

King of Peace

Strikingly, the prophets not only looked for a coming “King of Nations” but also a “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6):

He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)

It is remarkable how many times the New Testament calls the Father “the God of peace” (Romans 15:33) and Jesus our “Lord of peace” (2 Thessalonians 3:16).

For now, some genuine and sad divisions do cease in Christ. He becomes the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. In him, we get outside our curved-in selves, we release our grasp on getting ours (including revenge), and Jesus really does heal some divisions. Others remain. For now. But the day is coming.

In the meantime, if possible, as far as it depends on us, we seek to live in peace with all (Romans 12:18). To those in the church, Paul writes, “Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you” (2 Corinthians 13:11). In Christ, we make what peace we can for now. And we wait.

Bind in One the Hearts

As Isaiah foresaw, a day draws near, Jesus’s second coming, when

You shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace . . .
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isaiah 55:12–13)

This Advent, still we wait — but we wait with hope. Jesus has healed and does heal relational wounds in this life. Some fathers come back. Some prodigals journey home. Some marriages are restored. Some friends confess their folly and apologize. Others sadly endure in their estrangement.

But those in Christ wait for a second Advent. Then we will go out in joy from our mourning in lowly exile here. And Christ himself, among us as Immanuel, will lead his people forth in peace.