Rejoice always

"Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."

I have heard these lines my entire life, and played them on the piano for almost as long.  I know that the moment in the song calls for a nice big forte, and sometimes it feels exciting to stumble on the triumphant major chord after all those mournful minor chords. 

But this morning I had a new realization:

The Rejoicing in the Song precedes Christ's coming.

I've always sung O Come O Come Emmanuel safely on the other side of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.  After everything is clear and everything is obvious.  Duh, of course Emmanuel will come to thee, O Israel - how could you ever have doubted that?

But today I realized - this song is written from the perspective of before all that.  It is written from the vantage of a waiting time, a time before gifts received.  It is written from a time of doubt, chaos, confusion. 

By this point, Israel was long past the hopeful image of descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Moses had come to lead them to the Promised land, and they ended up wandering for 40 years, and then they fell in with all sorts of other people, and many lost their beliefs.  And then Israel totally split into Northern and Southern kingdoms - which certainly must have filled many hearts with doubt about where all this was leading.  God may have promised something great to begin with, but then there came schisms, and corruption, and acts of treachery. 

I kind of laugh at the term "hot mess." Israel was in a pretty hot mess at this point. 

And STILL, in the midst of it, are these words: REJOICE!

And not because they had seen the great king they were looking for, but because they had hope that He WOULD come. 

Sometimes when I am waiting, I find it hard to rejoice.  Instead, I find it easier to worry.  And if I rejoice, it's half-hearted, because for all that, I'm really not sure it will all be okay in the end.

Why is it easier NOT to rejoice when we haven't seen the answer we seek?  Why is it easier to resort to, "It will never happen.  I'm crazy to hope for this,"  rather than to give ourselves fully to joyful expectation?

And why might it be good to rejoice when our hands are empty?

Rejoicing - - - opens my eyes to receive.  It welcomes answers in whatever form they will come. 
Rejoicing - - - predisposes me for hope, and good things are drawn in.
Rejoicing - - - keeps the lines of communication open between me and God, rather than turning God
                        into my enemy.