It’s hard not to love Christmas carols; they serve to get us in the joyful spirit of Christmas and through the beauty and poetry of the music can deeply move us to contemplate the birth of Jesus. There are some pedants who would argue that strictly speaking carols are more properly saved for Christmas Day onwards (for the same reason that we don’t sing joyful Easter hymns during Lent). After all, Advent is a penitential season too. If that’s the case then there really ought to be more Advent hymns! One of the few hymns that is specifically intended for Advent is “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” This hymn has a fascinating history with roots that go back to the Church’s ancient liturgy, to at least the 6^th century.  
 
Throughout the weeks of Advent the readings at Mass and in the Divine Office are focused heavily on the prophet Isaiah. More so than any other prophet, Isaiah proclaims the promise of the ‘Messiah’ (or in Greek, ‘Christ’) meaning the Anointed One, who would come to save not only Israel but all the nations. Seven of these Messianic titles from Isaiah were arranged into antiphons to be used in the Sacred Liturgy (specifically the Magnificat Antiphon for Evening Prayer), in the seven days leading up to Christmas. These have become known as the ‘Great O Antiphons’, because they each begin by invoking Jesus Christ under a title in the vocative form. Below is a brief summary of these titles and what they mean: 
 
17 December: O Sapientia (O Wisdom) 
“And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might” (Isaiah 11:2). The idea of the Wisdom of God being personified is a widely used trope throughout the ancient world, but it becomes prominent in the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament: "[Wisdom] reaches from end to end mightily and governs all things well" (Wisdom 8:1). Throughout scripture, Wisdom is seen as a manifestation of power. In 2Kings, Solomon is the archetypal ‘wise King’ and therefore his kingdom represents the Kingdom of Israel at the very height of its power. John’s Gospel speaks of Jesus Christ as the ‘Logos’ (‘Word of God’) which in Greek has a sense very close to wisdom/truth. The idea of Jesus as the wisdom of God is born out in the Gospels. In Mark 6:2 and Matthew 13:54 the crowds are astonished at the profundity of Christ’s teaching and they ask among themselves, “where did he get all this wisdom, and the power to perform such mighty works?”. In his first letter to the Corinthians, St Paul unpacks this mystery of Christ as the ‘wisdom of God’ that shows up the foolishness of human wisdom: 
¹⁸ For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  …Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1Cor 1:18-24) 

18 December: O Adonai (O Lord) 
Adonai is the Hebrew word for ‘Lord’, ‘Master’, ‘Ruler’. It is used throughout the Old Testament as a substitute for the Divine name YHWH (‘Yahweh’) which was given to Moses from the Burning Bush (See Exodus 3:14). The Jews considered the Holy Name of God to be so sacred that they would avoid uttering the Divine Name, and instead replace it with Adonai (Lord). In fact, this custom has been retained even by Christians. Virtually all English Bibles will substitute the Divine Name (Yahweh) with ‘LORD’ (so-capitalised to indicate that it is a substitution).  
 
When the resurrected Christ appears to the doubting-apostle, Thomas, the week after Easter, Thomas makes a full ascent of faith by declaring: “My Lord and My God” (John 20:28). The Divine sense of ‘Lord’ (Adonai) is crystal clear. To declare Jesus as Lord, is to declare Jesus as Master, Ruler and God. Jesus himself does not shy away from such a claim. At the Last Supper he says to the Apostles: “You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.” John 13:13). And before he ascends into heaven Jesus declares: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18). In the canticle of Philippians 2 St Paul declares:   
 
“Therefore God has highly exalted [Christ] and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:9-11). 
  
19 December: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse) 
We have already referenced Isaiah 11:2, but for the fuller context he makes the following mysterious prophecy of the Messiah: 
“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the spirit of counsel and might,
    the spirit of knowledge and piety,.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:1-3) 
 
This passage implies an off-spring of Jesse, one proceeding from his stock. Isaiah then goes on to describe a reign of peace with the wolf lying down with the lamb, the calf with the lion, and so on. Shortly thereafter Isaiah says: “In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek, and his dwellings shall be glorious.” (Isaiah 11:10) What does all this mean?  
 
The family tree of Jesse will in due course grow under King David and Solomon. But after Solomon the Kings of this line we see a steep decline. The kingdom is split between the Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and the latter (who was Solomon’s son) becomes a vicious tyrant, causing the collapse of the Kingdom of Judah. The wisdom and strength of Solomon is replaced by the foolishness and weakness of Rehobaom. What follows is a story of decline and fall from which the Davidic Kingdom never recovers. The family tree of Jesse becomes so rotten that it is (so to speak) felled to the ground, but in the fulness of time a new shoot bursts forth from the felled-stump of Jesse, a new “Son of David” who will be a sign to all peoples and nations (according to the prophecy of Isaiah 11:10) and who will offer the eternal ‘glorious dwellings’ of his heavenly kingdom. 
  
(To be continued next week)