Singing the O Antiphons during the days of Advent is a tradition that dates back to the 5th century. Each of the seven antiphons contains a name for the messiah given by the prophet Isaiah: O Wisdom,O Lord, O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Morning Star, O King of the Nations, O Emmanuel (meaning God with us).

Here’s my own take right now:
O come, O come Wisdom from on high – Send your wisdom and cast aside the myopic stupidity that comes from thinking only of ourselves, only of our own species, only of our own wellbeing, only of our own country, only of our own religion, only of our own historical moment.

O come, O come Lord. Come and again break open our hearts like only a baby can do. Come and again be born in straw and mud and show us God’s preferential option for the ordinary, the small, the unnoticeable among us. Come and again show us what we always seem to forget – that the divine is so often concealed within the common.

O come, O come, Root of Jesse – Our foundation. When in this time of year, families of origin are sometimes difficult to claim, remind us once again how we are grafted into the story of you and your people. Come and claim us as your own children so that our belonging to you and to each other and to the saints who came before, can be a more reliable and less bonkers source of our identity.

O Come O Come, Key of David – you who are the opener of prisons and hearts, free us from the bondage of all the things we think we cannot live without. Comfort all who are incarcerated, and be with their families who, in a way, are serving their own sentences. Break the chains of self-righteousness, and self-interest, and self-reliance, and self-loathing, and self-importance.

O Come O Come, Morning Star, shine on those who sit in the shadows. Hold in your eternal light, the souls of those killed by another’s hand. Come and dispel the darkness in our own hearts especially when we start believing that one act of violence, is somehow more powerful than every single act of love that happened on the same day.

O Come O Come King of the Nations – you who created all that is and yet emptied yourself of power, come and show us again that we must lose our lives to find them. Heal the nations by bringing your unlikely kingdom of enemy-love and cheek-turning. May we who wield power over others fall on our knees and worship the king who was held in a cradle and on a cross.

O Come O Come Emmanuel, who is as present in our loneliness, as in our fellowship; as close in sorrow as in joy. Make your presence felt to all who face The Holidays for the first time without someone they love – a child, a friend, a lover, a parent. Hold them especially close. And just get them through it, Lord.

Amen.

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