My favorite Advent song is "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". Why? The words to this song, in its original Latin perhaps as old as the 8th century, translated by John Mason Neale in the mid-1800s, express a yearning for the foretold Messiah (addressed as Emmanuel), the anointed one of God.
Emmanuel itself is a Hebrew word, עִמָּנוּאֵל , meaning "God with us", and is today used as a given name. Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher and ethicist; Emanuel I and II of Portugal; Emmanuel Lewis, the American actor; Rahm Emanuel, current White House chief of staff, are all examples of famous men bearing this name. But the words to this particular hymn, "Veni, veni Emanuel", derive from Isaiah 17:4, which reads:
לָכֵן יִתֵּן אֲדֹנָי הוּא לָכֶם אוֹת הִנֵּה הָעַלְמָה הָרָה וְיֹלֶדֶת בֵּן וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ עִמָּנוּאֵל
Therefore, my Lord Himself shall give yo a sign. Behold, the virgin is pregnant, and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (with us is God).
This prophecy, in the Christian tradition, is later referenced by the author of the gospel of St. Matthew as having foretold the birth of Jesus from the virgin Mary. Emmanuel, therefore, is Jesus - Yahshua ben Yusef - the anointed one of God. We believe that Jesus is God, that God did not have carnal relations with Mary, nor split himself into separate persons, but that being all-powerful, God is able to be incarnated as flesh through the womb of a woman who has never known a man.
The words to "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" tell of a yearning. . . in Jewish tradition, even today, the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have been waiting for a Messiah to deliver them and to bring glory back to Jerusalem. My reflection is that the Messiah of the Jews was not to come merely to bring about tangible, palpable deliverance, such as from the Roman Empire of Jesus' day, or the many conquering empires that have overrun Israel's land, or the Nazi regime of Germany, or even anti-Semitism that still plagues certain parts of the world. Rather, the long-awaited Messiah is to come to bring about spiritual deliverance - to do what they alone, being imperfect and being men, could not accomplish. To redeem them from sin.
Have you ever waited a long time for something? A very long time? Days? Weeks? How about months? Years? Try hundreds of them. If you were waiting hundreds of years for the most miraculous deliverance of the ages, you would no doubt have a great sense of longing for what had not yet come. This, then, is what I feel when I listen to the pure voice of the sopranos (or the men in unison) sing the words of this hymn. . . the solitary, communal waiting for the Messiah who is to come.
O come, o come Emmanuel,and ransom captive Israel who mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice, rejoice,
Emmanuel shall come to thee, o Israel.
O come thou dayspring,
come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice, rejoice,
Emmanuel shall come to thee, o Israel.
O come thou key of David,
come and open wide our heavenly home.
Make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery.
Rejoice, rejoice,
Emmanuel shall come to thee, o Israel.
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