"O Come, O Come"

"O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" is one of my favorite hymns at this time of the year. The beauty of the music and the profundity with which it captures the traditional Christian invocation of the O Antiphons constitute an almost irresistible invitation to worship deeply.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,
and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night
and death's dark shadow put to flight. 

It is a song of longing, of waiting for the appearance of Christ. It captures the lamentation of God's people who yearned for his appearance, and of us, who still yearn for his second coming and for the daily appearance of his grace in our lives.

O come, o come, Thou Lord of might,
who to thy tribes on Sinai's height
in ancient times did give the law,
in cloud, and majesty, and awe.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse's stem,
from ev'ry foe deliver them
that trust Thy mighty power to save,
and give them vict'ry o'er the grave. 

The song expresses a longing that is not mere wishful thinking, for it observes the power with which God has been near to us in times past. It is the call of those who have been God's people, who have known God's real presence, and who long for that presence to return.

O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high,
and order all things far and nigh;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heav'nly home,
make safe the way that leads on high,
that we no more have cause to sigh. 

It is a song that recognizes the sins of the present. It does not ignore the sufferings and injustices we inflict upon others and suffer ourselves, but faces them. The longing for God's presence is not abstract, but based on a concrete need for Christ to put in order our maladjusted lives and lead in the paths of knowledge.

O come, Desire of the nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid every strife and quarrel cease
and fill the world with heaven's peace.

It is a song that finds fault and inadequacy not just in the lives of us who sing it but in all people, and conversely hopes for the coming of God not only to ourselves but to the whole world. It recognizes the power of God's nativity as the solution to injustice and strife, seeing in the reality of evil a hope for God's peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, o Israel!

I love that a hymn in a minor key revolves around the word "rejoice." The Christian hope is confidence and surety: Christ will come. Thus, even in the period of longing, it is possible to rejoice. Joy is not reserved merely for those times when one can exult in a major key ("Joy to the world! The Lord is come!"); rather, there is also a rejoicing proper to times of lamentation.


Far, far too many of us do not sing this song -- or, rather, we sing it, but we do not live it. When Thanksgiving has passed (or even before), we turn straight to Christmas, skipping Advent completely. The Christian faith certainly observes a time of celebration at the coming of our Lord: we feast for the octave of Christmas itself and continue the Christmas season until the commemoration of Christ's baptism. But the Christian faith also observes a time of preparation for the coming of Christmas. Like the Israelites, who wandered in the desert for forty days, we wait in four weeks of expectation for the arrival of our God.

Advent is a time of somber spiritual preparation. It is a penitential time, during which we come face to face with the reality of our need for God's presence, remember God's past goodness, and cry out for God to come again.

It is difficult, when secular life is whirling about with the frenzy of commercial Christmas, to restrain ourselves. The temptation to pretend as though Christmas has arrived -- to put out the Christmas trappings about the home, to decorate and light a tree, to play "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" on the radio, to eat Christmas goodies -- is strong. I find it tremendously difficult to observe Advent. For the most part, actually, I fail.

But it is precisely when we find it most difficult to observe Advent that we most desperately need this season. The coming of Christ requires preparation, and this preparation can be unpleasant work. It requires vigilance and self-assessment. In Matthew 25, Christ tells an Advent parable. Ten young women are waiting for a bridegroom to come and begin a wedding feast. Five of these take the time to prepare for his coming, while five do not. When he arrives, the five who are prepared join the feast, while the five who are unprepared are left out. The parable would work equally well if we were to imagine that the five unprepared women, like so many in our society, not only dispense with preparation but pretend as though the bridegroom had already come, throwing their own feast. There is a sad contrast between the common contemporary practice, in which many celebrate Christmas out of season, then scramble to reform their lives afterward with resolutions, and the Christian practice of careful preparation leading up to the season of Christmas celebration. May we not be caught feasting our way through December, rather than soberly preparing for the coming of our Lord.

We must pray to God for the grace to observe Advent, for strength to resist the temptation of leaping straight into Christmas. When midnight comes, as we gather to keep watch for Christ's humble entrance into history, we shall burst into the exalted proclamation of "Joy to the world! The Lord has come!" Until then, we assess our lives, call out for God, prepare ourselves for this coming, and rejoice in the hope that it will be so.

O come, o come, Emmanuel!