Oh, come, oh, 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.
One certainty of this life is that there are things we have no choice but to wait for. We wait impatiently for our internet browser to load. We wait expectantly for that first tug of a walleye on our line. We wait anxiously for the births of our children and grandchildren. Something that I patiently wait for is the beginning of the beautiful season of Advent. In this brief time before Christmas, we light candles in worship as a reminder that darkness cannot overcome us, and we sing the ancient hymn, Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel.
The words to Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel were likely written by a monk living humbly in a monastery somewhere in Europe during the dark ages. The first known record of these words dates back to around 800 CE, making them at least 1,200 years old. These verses were written at a time when mankind was sliding backward into chaos, ignorance, pestilence, and unrelenting warfare. During the dark ages, Bibles were laboriously copied by hand and almost unobtainable, but whoever composed this song knew scripture by heart. Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel is filled with the prophetic voice of a people crying out for the coming of their savior. For the impoverished and illiterate people of that dark time, his words expressed the hope and the truth of Christmas through the fulfillment of ancient prophecies in the birth of Christ.
We can sing this hymn today because back in the mid-19th century, an Anglican priest named John Mason Neale, who had been banished to the Canary Islands, had a copy of an ancient Latin chanter in his library. He came across these words, which moved him deeply. As he meditated on them, the melody line of an obscure 15th-century French processional hymn that he had once heard came to him. He put the two together and the hymn, Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel was born.
So … this beautiful Advent gift was written by an unknown monk over 1,200 years ago, rediscovered in the 19th century by a priest exiled to an island off the coast of Africa, then given a melody composed by nuns who had lived in a French convent some 400 years before the translator was even born. It took over a thousand years for Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel to be written so that we can gather in churches here along the North Shore to sing it this Sunday.
Like the haunting melody of Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel, Advent is a stark reminder of things this world wishes to keep hidden in the shadows; the exploitation of the powerless, the abuse of the defenseless, the corruption of justice and equality. God isn’t just present in festive shopping malls and in contented homes with stockings hung by the fire. God is present in third-world alleyways where people eat out of the trash the affluent discard. God is found in the anxiety of rural families destroyed by meth addiction. God is near to the victims of mass shootings that have become a predictable part of the news cycle.
We are invited during this brief season to live the gospel by being God’s presence in this broken world: by waiting with those who wait, by praying with those in need of prayer, and by responding in love toward those who need a hand to hold. This invitation is the real gift of the season because we always encounter The Christ among those who are most in need of our love.
It’s said that Martin Luther once wrote that if he knew the earth would end tomorrow, he’d go out and plant an apple tree today. This Advent, I invite you to take Luther’s idea and re-imagine how you can change the future by gifting yourself to the community. Go out and hug someone who needs a hug. Be reconciled to your crabby neighbor. Take a basket of food to a shut-in. Pick up the tab for the elderly couple eating lunch at the next table. Buy a hot cup of coffee for a law enforcement officer. Send a Christmas card to an anonymous soldier. Offer to watch the neighbor kids so their parents can have a well-deserved night out.
You get the idea. Do something that brings Christ into our community, even if it’s something so small that no one else will ever notice. This is how we are invited to live out this season of anticipation and expectation; by loving this world as it has never been loved so that hope will abound, and joy will come alive.
Oh, come, oh king of nations, come, oh cornerstone that binds in one. Refresh the hearts that long for you. Restore the broken. Make us new. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Tom Murray of the Lutsen Lutheran Church and Baptism River Community Church of Finland.
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