O Come O Come Emmanuel!

One more "Piano Guys" moment:  It is a Christmas concert.  You are sitting in a basketball arena with 15,000+ people most whom you don't know.  You are there to enjoy music from some very talented men on a piano and cello.  You expect to be amazed and to laugh.  And with a few words, things change--

Steve Sharp Nelson (the cello player) starts by reciting the words of a familiar Christmas song:

O come, o come Emmanuel
To free your captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

Then in words I wish that I had written down he first apologized that he didn't want to offend anyone but this was a Christmas concert and then he spoke about captive Israel--how they have yearned for Emmanuel to come and save them.  How often they have been captured and overran by their enemies including the Babylons, Egyptians, the Romans, and more....how they prayed to be set free.  Even now they are praying for that.  How lucky we are to know that we are free--from the binds of death and from the stain of sin, He has made a way for us to be freed and He will come again--and captive Israel will be freed.

Rejoice, rejoice o Israel

To you shall come Emmanuel

There in the middle of a Christmas concert, in the darkness of an arena of people, tears flowed down my face as the Spirit bore witness once again the truth of all that he has said. It was as powerful as any testimony meeting or private moment in the temple.  Christ came as a babe that first Christmas morning, He lived and served to show us an example of now to live, and then He willingly and completely paid the price for all sin that we might be freed through repentance, then He hung on that cross and gave His life up completely to submit to His Father and to complete that part of His work.  On that third day, He truly did rise from the grave.  He leads the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today...and some day, we will all stand either on this earth or in the heavens above and we will rejoice--for HE WILL COME AGAIN!  All of that filled my mind as they played this beautiful song.

Rejoice, rejoice o Israel

To you shall come Emmanuel

Here is a link to their youtube video of this song.  Maybe listening to it might remind you of your own testimony of Jesus Christ and you will also be reminded that "To you shall come Emmanuel."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7ySn-Swwc

And this is the best Christmas gift I can give to any of you who will read this now or in the future--my testimony of Jesus Christ.