O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel
To thee shall come Emmanuel! (O Come, O Come, Emmanuel verse for December 23)
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David.. (Luke 1:32)
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
Emmanuel (God with us). Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace. The Word. Son of the Most High. Jesus (Savior). These are all names of Jesus, and not the only names. Msgr. Charles Pope listed 150 names for Jesus from Scripture plus the Scripture references. Who else has 150 different titles, all so beautifully descriptive of the infinite good characteristics of Our Lord Jesus Christ?
From time immemorial, people had a sense that there is Something, Someone greater than they are. Something, Someone greater than all of humanity put together for all time. A sense that we are not alone or abandoned, that Someone beyond ourselves knows of our existence and cares. From time immemorial, this Something, this Someone seemed too distance, too foreboding, too powerful to contemplate much less approach. But this great and infinite Someone has a love that is also infinite and an infinite desire for us to participate in that love forever. So how could the infinite Someone show us Love, make us unafraid to approach? By becoming as helpless as possible, by making Himself subject to mortals for every need. Only God could have thought of taking on human flesh and being born a helpless Infant.
The verses we contemplate today talk, as do the previous O Antiphons, about setting us free. Free from what? Not merely domination by powerful governments but domination by the greatest evil force of all--sin. Could humans have dreamed that becoming little is becoming great, that being subject to all (as St. Francis wrote) is being more powerful than all, that surrendering to God's power in one's life is to be assured of victory even if, by worldly standards, all cries of human defeat?
A person who wants to achieve a new look has to submit to make up artists and beauticians and sometimes plastic surgeons and diet experts in order to reach the goal. Those who want a new spiritual look must submit to the workings of God Who is the ultimate Expert in all matters. In fact, when He is done with us, we may not look at all like we envisioned we would spiritually---we will have a better spiritual contour than we could ever imagine.
Come, O come, Emmanuel, come and set us free from our slavery to sin. Come and free us from our own ideas of how we shall become holy. Come and grant us the grace to put our hands into those of a helpless Infant and to trust Him to lead us in the exactly right path for our salvation. Come, O Jesus. Come, O Word of God. Come, O Bread of Life. Come. Amen.
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