My favorite Christmas hymn is “O Come, O Come Immanuel,” a 12th Century Christian hymn originally written in Latin. Here are the words and I wish Stephanie Seefeldt would make the ivories of her piano sing this song for us:
\nO come, O come, Emmanuel,
\nAnd ransom captive Israel,
\nThat mourns in lonely exile here
\nUntil the Son of God appear.
\nRefrain: Rejoice! Rejoice!
\nEmmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
\nO come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
\nWho orderest all things mightily;
\nTo us the path of knowledge show,
\nAnd teach us in her ways to go.
\nRefrain
\nO come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
\nThine own from Satan?s tyranny;
\nFrom depths of hell Thy people save,
\nAnd give them victory over the grave.
\nRefrain
\nO come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
\nOur spirits by Thine advent here;
\nDisperse the gloomy clouds of night,
\nAnd death?s dark shadows put to flight.
\nRefrain
\nO come, Thou Key of David, come,
\nAnd open wide our heavenly home;
\nMake safe the way that leads on high,
\nAnd close the path to misery.
\nRefrain
\nO come, O come, great Lord of might,
\nWho to Thy tribes on Sinai?s height
\nIn ancient times once gave the law
\nIn cloud and majesty and awe.
\nRefrain
\nO come, Thou Root of Jesse?s tree,
\nAn ensign of Thy people be;
\nBefore Thee rulers silent fall;
\nAll peoples on Thy mercy call.
\nRefrain
\nO come, Desire of nations, bind
\nIn one the hearts of all mankind;
\nBid Thou our sad divisions cease,
\nAnd be Thyself our King of Peace.
\nRefrain
\nA justification for seeing Christmas as release from exile can be found in Matthew’s Gospel:
\nThus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ (Matthew 1:17).
\nChristmas is the End to Exile. Tom Wright made a big deal of the theme “exile” as dominating the Jewish world and that Jesus and Paul both set their theology into such a context by proclaiming that the exile was now ended. Tom has probably over done this theme at times, but it is a theme that he captured for us and brought back to our understanding of the historical context of Jesus. And Matthew evidently thought along similar lines.
\nThe implications are clear:
\n1. Jesus is the Victor, the one who enters into enemy territory and releases us from captivity. This is the point of Mark 10:45.
\n2. Humans are in captivity, and this has traditionally been seen with words that begin with “s”: to sin, to self, to Satan, and to systemic evil.
\n3. Jesus releases us, not simply through the cross, but at Christmas in the Incarnation, in his Life as the obedient life of the Second Israel and Second Adam, through his death by taking on our captivity, and through the Resurrection by breaking the powers of sin, self, Satan, and systemic violence. He now gives us the Spirit to be empowered to live that life.
\n4. Christmas is about bring the end-to-exile theme to others.
\nChristmas is the End of Exile and we need to live out a Life destined for the Promised Land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My favorite Christmas hymn is “O Come, O Come Immanuel,” a 12th Century Christian hymn originally written in Latin. Here are the words and I wish Stephanie Seefeldt would make the ivories of her piano sing this song for us:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent"],"yoast_head":"\n