O Come, O Come Emmanuel

I wonder how many worship services the world over began today with the same processional hymn. We sang it. "O come, O come Emmanuel." It is probably the greatest of Advent hymns. And it is an Advent hymn, not a Christmas carol. The secular world does not understand Advent. Maybe the fact that we hear this Advent hymn everywhere around Christmas time indicates a deep longing for Advent, even amongst people who don’t know or understand Advent. Something about the quality of Advent resonates within us.

Advent is a wonderful season. Its character bears a combination of longing and sure expectation. It is a paradoxical mixture of future hope and present assurance. That mixture is who we are as Christians. We are people who know the presence and love of Christ in our lives and yet still long for its ultimate fulfillment. We have been given Christ as the answer, the destination of our life’s journey, but as human beings we are still on that journey. Full understanding, full life in God’s presence lies yet ahead of us on the horizon. This is the Christian life. This has always been the Christian life for all who call themselves Christian… all who live between the time of Christ’s first coming, his life and ministry on earth, and his second coming at the fulfillment of time. We live with this paradoxical mixture of future hope and present assurance, of certain expectation and eager longing.

Advent’s gift to us is to remind us of this quality of the Christian life. To focus our attention on Christ as the source of our assurance, but also to remind us that we have not yet arrived.

This hymn, O come, O come Emmanuel, conveys this quality of Advent. It was written in the early centuries of the church, by those who knew Christ and lived with the assurance of what Christ brought and brings. But the text of the hymn draws largely on Old Testament allusions, the words of those who looked forward in longing and hope for the coming of the Messiah.

The hymn is based on a series of antiphons, written originally in Latin, to be used before and after the Magnificat during the saying of vespers in the season before Christmas. They were in use probably as early as the 6^th century, definitely by the 8^th. The Magnificat is Mary’s great hymn of praise and excited expectation, wonderfully appropriate for Advent. These are her words after she learns she will bear Emmanuel. "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." The Magnificat is still a part of the Evening Prayer service in our current prayer book.

The antiphons are variable refrains, changing day by day, to be said before and after the Magnificat. These seven great Antiphons, called the Great "O’s", were said on successive days from December 17^th through the 23^rd. For 1500 years the church has said and sung these Great O’s in anticipation of Christmas. Each of the antiphons salutes the coming Messiah under one of the many titles ascribed to him in Holy Scripture. Then after that salutation or greeting, a petition follows. Listen to these salutations. They speak of the one whom we await, the Messiah.

The Great "O’s":

O Sapientia. Wisdom.
O Adonia. Lord.
O radix Jesse. Branch or shoot of Jesse.
O clavis David. Key of David.
O Oriens. Dayspring. Dawn.
O Rex gentium. King of all. Desire of nations.
O Emmanuel. God with us.

All of these titles have their origin in Scripture. Episcopalians are often accused of not using the Bible. We use it. Our problem is we don’t know we use it. The Prayer Book and Hymnal are full of material from Scripture.

The first Great "O." O come, thou wisdom from on high. Wisdom. A passage from Ecclesiasticus (24:3) speaks of Wisdom as coming forth from the mouth of the most high and having the power to do all things. And from the Wisdom of Solomon (8:1), written in the intertestamental period between the Old and New Testaments: "[Wisdom] reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and she orders all things well." This is the promised Messiah… coming forth from the very mouth of God and, with might, ordering all things well.

The second Great "O." O come, thou Lord of might. Lord. Adonia. The allusions are from Exodus (19:18 ff). The Lord is the one who chooses and will care for his people. "Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently… Then the Lord God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God." And then nine more commandments after that. Remember, the ten commandments are a gift, from the Lord to guide and help the Lord’s own people.

The third Great "O." O come, thou branch of Jesse. Jesse is David’s father. Several allusions in Scripture tell how the promised Messiah will come from the house of David. From Isaiah (11:10): "On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious." Paul, in Romans (15:11-12), quotes this very passage from Isaiah, identifying the root of Jesse as the one in whom the Gentiles hope, the one who brings the promise to us.

The fourth Great "O." O come, thou Key of David. The Key of David may not be an image familiar to you, but several passages in Scripture identify the Key of David as a sign of authority. Isaiah 22:22: "I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut and no one shall open. I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his ancestral house." Isaiah again (42:7) in the servant songs speaks of the one who will "bring a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon." The key of David opens the prison doors, frees us from all that binds and enslaves us.

The early Christians who developed these antiphons knew their Scripture. And they saw footprints in Scripture, in its images and words of prophecy. Bits of promise. Words of hope. A footprint here and there, taken together expressing that Advent mix of longing and expectation. For the early Christians, those footprints in Scripture led clearly to the birth of Christ. And so we follow them during Advent.

The fifth Great "O." O come, Dayspring from on high. O Oriens. The allusion is from Malachi (4:1-2). "See the day is coming… for you who revere my name, the sun (s-u-n) of righteousness shall rise." And, of course, in many places in the New Testament Jesus identifies himself with light. John 8:12: "I am the light of the world." The Messiah brings light into darkness.

The sixth Great "O." O come, desire of nations. Prince of Peace. The promised one draws us together across any boundaries of nation or perspective that seem to divide us. We are united in him. Ephesians (2:14): "For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us… so then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone."

And the final, seventh Great "O." O come, o come, Emmanuel. It is the familiar passage in Isaiah (7:14). "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look; the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel." Which means "God with us."

O come. Thou wisdom from on high. O come, thou Lord of might. O come, thou Branch of Jesse, thou Key of David. O come, thou Dayspring from on high, Desire of nations. Come. O Come Emmanuel.

There’s one more interesting bit of trivia about this hymn. The great "O’s", the salutations, the names given to the Messiah in Latin form an acrostic. If you take the first letter of each title… Sapientia, "S"; Adonia, "A"; and so on… Those letters, taken in reverse order spell ERO CRAS, which is Latin for "I shall be present tomorrow." They’re in reverse, so that the full revelation of the acrostic doesn’t occur until the end. This is Advent. Day by day the revelation unfolds, but is not fully revealed until the end. But if you say the antiphons day by day in the days leading up to Christmas, on the day before Christmas Eve, the meaning is revealed. I shall come tomorrow. I shall come. Tomorrow.

This is Advent. We come to God; God comes to us, step by step, day by day. The assurance cannot be shaken. I shall come, Jesus says. But that assurance does not mean that we may presume to grab or claim the promise in an instant, whenever we wish. The demand, "I need it yesterday," doesn’t work with the Messiah. He will come. Tomorrow. We must watch and wait for the revealing of Emmanuel, God with us. Advent reminds us of what is always true. The promise has been given, but longing and yearning for its fulfillment are a part of our Christian life. O come, O come, Emmanuel. Please come. Emmanuel, please come. To us.

References:

The Hymnal 1982 Companion, Volume Three A. Raymond F. Glover, ed. Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994.

The Hymnal 1940 Companion. The Joint Commission on the Revision of the Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The Church Pension Fund, 1951.