O Emmanuel
O come, O come, Emmanuel
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice, Rejoice Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel
There is something about a good old hymn to usher in Christmas. Even our largely post-Christian society will still sing many of these deeply Christian songs with us. Yet in our hustle and bustle during this time of year, we rarely stop and meditate on the words. As a matter of fact, for many of us, we may not even be able to sing from memory more than the first verse of songs we have been singing for decades.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is one of these wonderful songs with a rich heritage. Its origin dates back to a 6-8th century poem containing seven verses of prose, each emphasizing a different Old Testament name for the anticipated Messiah. Wisdom, Adonai (Lord), Root of Jesse, Key of David, Dawn of the East (Morningstar), King of Nations, and Emmanuel (God with us) all help us meditate on the beauty of our Savior. Yet many of today’s hymnals only have retained four of the original verses causing the imagery to lose some of its luster. And our lack of reflecting on more than the first verse (as good as it might be) has perhaps caused us to make a bit less of the celebration of the birth of our Savior.
So, I would encourage you to take some time between now and Christmas day to dig into an old hymn like O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and consider the wonder of your Messiah, Jesus Christ.
To help you on your journey, consider the poem, “O Emmanuel” by Malcolm Guite[1]. It was written out of his reflection on this ancient poem in which he incorporates many of these same names for the coming Messiah. I have listed them below along with their related scripture verses from the book of Isaiah.
Wisdom – Isaiah 11:2, 33:6
Root – Isaiah 11:10
Key – Isaiah 22:22
King – Isaiah 33:22
Flame – Isaiah 10:17
Emmanuel – Isaiah 7:14
With this bit of fuel for your advent fire, along with the poem itself, I hope your anticipation of the celebration of our Messiah burns just a bit brighter!
Pastor Brad
“O Emmanuel” by Malcolm Guite
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name,
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame.
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.
[1] Guite, M. (2015). Waiting on the word: A poem a day for advent, Christmas and epiphany. Canterbury Press.
