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"Savior of the Nations, Come"
"So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).
When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and have a son, the young woman identified a flaw in the messenger's statement. "How will this be," she asked, "since I am a virgin?" (verse 34). The angel's words defied all logic and all natural laws. At no time in history has any other woman conceived and given birth to a child without the benefit of a human father. The rules of nature insist that it cannot happen. It is indeed a paradox, but one that God could easily overcome (Luke 1:37).
Yet this was not the greatest paradox facing the young virgin. As she contemplated this miracle birth, she wondered how her human child could be God's Son, a divine child born to a human mother. Jesus would be the Savior long promised by the Lord's prophets. Less than a century later, the writer to the Hebrews would explain why it was necessary for God to become flesh. Jesus shared our humanity "so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is, the devil-and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (2:14,15). Jesus: God born in Bethlehem! What a miracle! What a comfort! Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, our perfect Savior and the Savior of all nations.
This wonderful event has been the subject of many Christian hymns over the centuries. One especially well stated is the fourth-century hymn "Savior of the Nations, Come" (CW 2), written by the chief poet of the early church, St. Ambrose (340-397). Ambrose sang God's truth originally in eight Latin stanzas. Martin Luther wanted to join him, so he later translated it into German verse. This Advent hymn has long been recognized as one of the great hymns of Christendom.
The hymn begins with the earnest plea of believers who recognize their desperate need for a divine Savior from sin and death: "Savior of the nations, come"(st. 1). Christian faith over the centuries has sung, "Wondrous birth! O wondrous Child of the virgin undefiled" (st. 3). Like all Christians we rejoice in what God has done for us in Jesus. We raise our voices and spirits and joyfully join the eternal hymn of praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (st. 5).
Our Christian faith erupts in song because our Savior is both human and divine!
© 2007 Northwestern Publishing House. All rights reserved.
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