A New Song for a New Day

As we continue to study the "Songs of the Season," I give you another Advent hymn for your devotional life.

Day # 4 “Once He Came in Blessing”

Once He came in blessing,

All our sins redressing;

Came in likeness lowly,

Son of God most holy;

Bore the cross to save us;

Hope and freedom gave us. LSB # 333 vs. 1

In this hymn, we have the opportunity to focus our attention on each of the 3 ways that we celebrate Advent. Here in this verse, we focus on the 1^st of the advents or comings of the Son of God. Did you catch it in the hymn? We are preparing for His coming as the child in Bethlehem. It is as though we are counting down the days till we celebrate Christmas Eve/Christmas Day for then we see Him coming in likeness lowly.

Wait? Likeness lowly? What is the world does the hymn writer mean here? He comes a likeness of you and me. He comes as a human. This the power of the incarnation, God in man made manifest. He comes in human likeness, lowly, not as the King of the universe, the God who made all things by His Word. No, He comes just like you and I came into the world. He was birthed by His mother Mary, in a stable of all places.

He came to be like us because He came to redress our sins. Redress? What does that mean. I looked it up on line (for who has a dictionary handy anymore?). This is what I found: “Remedy, or set right.” Yep, that is exactly what He did. He came to redress our sins. He came to remedy them, to set them right. That is why the Father sent His only-begotten Son into this world to be a man, to redress our sins.

He does that as He goes to the cross. He bore the cross for us, for our sins, for our salvation. He came to take our place under the Law, to fulfill the Law on our behalf, so that we might have our sins redressed. I like that word. Redress our sins. You might hear that in a sermon one day. Or maybe you won’t. He came to remedy that which we could not remedy. He came to give His life for our lives, to die our deaths, to pay what we could not pay. He did that on the cross. He did that as He stretched out those sinless arms upon that cross, cried out in agony, and died for us and for our salvation.

All to give us hope and freedom. Once He came in blessing, to redress our sins, to give us hope and freedom. Hope, back to that emphasis of the 1^st week of Advent. Hope. Hope and freedom given to us. Thanks be to God.

Prayer: Thank You for sending Your Son, dear Father. Thank You for the hope that You give us as He bore our sins to the cross. What a wonderful gift You have given to us. We praise Your name for this new life. Amen.