O Emmanuel: Christmas Daybook, 1
This week we are adoring Jesus by praying the prophetic names of the O Antiphons.
O EMMANUEL
Opening Prayer: O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people: Come and set us free, Lord our God.
Read: Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:31-33; Isaiah 43:1-2,8-9a,10-13; 1 Timothy 3:16
A Reading from Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Imman’u-el.
A Reading from Luke 1:31-33
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 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, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom, there will be no end.
A Reading from Isaiah 43:1-2,8-9a,10-13
But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you...
Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! Let all the nations gather together, and let the peoples assemble... “You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me, there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,” says the Lord. “I am God, and also henceforth I am He; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work and who can hinder it?”
A Reading from 1 Timothy 3:16
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
Pray: Read Malcolm Guite's sonnet and sing all seven verses of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel as the prayer for today.
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.
Thank you to fellow Daybook Meditations member, Joy Beless and The Invitation Project for this beautiful version of O Come, O Come Emmanuel which includes all 7 verses (in order!). YouTube w/ lyrics | Spotify
Turning the Corner Into Christmas
WILL YOU JOIN ME FOR ALL 12 DAYS?
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach! ”
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
What a joy these past twenty-nine days have been contemplating together the mercy and marvel of the advent of Emmanuel. Every year I battle a sense of futility - that this quiet space is meaningless in the midst of our sometimes frenetic need to get to the cozy, chaotic celebration part of Christmas. Every year the Holy Spirit meets me again in the ancient, sober texts of the prophets and the fierce hope of the people of God. I want to be a woman of fierce hope and to embrace every spark and glimmer of light that comes down from the Father in word, practice, prayer, and beauty. I want to consume this light until it radiates from the inside out to help push back the darkness in this weary world.
Every year God meets me through you. I ponder your stories of meeting through these humble blog posts the once and coming again King and receive them as gifts just as plain as the ones beginning to accumulate under our Christmas tree. That even one other person knows the God of Christ more nearly and dearly this year because of this holy compulsion of mine to sift through each Scripture and song and prayer is the greatest gift. Thank you for walking the Advent road along with me.
We are turning a corner friends. I often daydream that before I publish the final Advent post (just as I do when I'm writing the Lent Daybook posts), I'll hear a trumpet and see Christ descending from the sky, returning to once and for all make all things new. If this does not happen before Christmas Day, we are given the responsibility to celebrate as if He did. This is no postscript to Advent; this is the Main Event! It's time to pull out the stops, and take on the holy calling of Feasting!
Playlists for Christmas
Christmas Eve (for my Momma): The quirky, sometimes kitschy, a little bit emo, and often melancholy playlist I made when we lived so far away from my parents. Now we live far away from other people we love, but the title of the playlist will remain in honor of those first homesick years.
Ring the Bells: A bit more traditional playlist (but still highlighting the lesser-known music of the season).
All 12 Days: A playlist for a festive and full Christmastide:
A few additional resources:
In the past few years, I've written a couple of posts about how our family has learned, failed, and learned again how to keep Christmas well: