“When is too early to start listening to Christmas music?” I’ve been asked this question left and right this year, and although my conscience tells me to always wait till after Thanksgiving, my heart has struggled to ward off the “Christmas cheer” and wait patiently for the proper time. One of my best friends set up a Christmas tree a week into November, and my Instagram feed has been spamming me with Christmas content since the second week of October.
I’ve always been frustrated by attempts to prolong Christmas artificially. You can always find ways to have too much of a good thing, and as much as I love cookie baking and making fun of bad Hallmark movies, I can’t imagine extending our modern American conception of Christmas into more than a few weeks without growing sick of the season before the day even arrives.
But Christmas has been a lengthy affair for centuries. The Council of Saragossa in 380 A.D. called the Christian church in Spain to extend their celebrations to the week leading up to Christmas, and from this humble beginning, Advent grew into a month-long element of the Medieval liturgical calendar. So, what makes modern attempts to expand the season so different?
Perhaps, like Linus reminds us in the classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” modern consumerist attitudes towards Christmas completely bypass the “reason for the season” – the Advent of Christ. Christmas Day is a time for exuberant joy over the greatest gift humanity has ever received – but the days and weeks leading up to the baby in the manger are not best filled by mindless endorphin shots through never-ending Mariah Carey on the radio. Instead, we have an opportunity, during these increasingly cold and dark days, to reflect on the reasons why we needed a Savior to come down – and to wait with longing for the fulfillment of promises carried by countless believers for thousands of years.
For as long as I can remember, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” has been my favorite Christmas carol. It’s not a particularly cheerful tune, and the words are devoid of jingling bells or shepherds in the snow. I have no idea what was so attractive to me in this melancholy song when I was a young child (maybe I just liked minor keys and subverting expectations). But at this point in my life, I have better formulated why the song has stayed in my heart and mind every Christmas.
From the outset, the carol declares itself to not be about Christmas. “O come, O come, Emmanuel / And ransom captive Israel / That mourns in lonely exile here / Until the Son of God appear.” Christ has not yet come for the singers of this haunting tune. And who were the initial singers? The song in its Latin form can be traced as far back as the time of Charlemagne, making it one of the oldest songs in modern hymnals. (The English translation we are more familiar with can be attributed to John Mason Neale, working in the mid-19th century.) So, the Christian church has ushered in the Advent season with these words for over a millennium.
Of course, even the earliest singers of this hymn were living in the Christian era, and Christ had already come, fulfilling his promise. But the early Benedictine monks who first sang these words wished to join in the mournful prayers of ancient Israel as they prepared their hearts for Christmas festivities. The story laid out in “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is rooted in Old Testament history – recalling Israel’s longing for the promised Messiah’s arrival as they suffered under “lonely exile.” Each of the seven original stanzas begins with a Messianic title from the book of Isaiah – “Emmanuel,” “Wisdom from on high,” “Great Lord of might,” “branch of Jesse,” “key of David,” “Morning Star” and “King of nations.” In the Latin text, these phrases were called the “O Antiphons,” and the first words spelled out the acrostic phrase “ero cras” – “I will be with you tomorrow.” It is a hopeful phrase, but it also affirms the longing in the hearts of the exiles. When will tomorrow come? When will the Savior arrive to redeem his people and make all the brokenness whole once more?
The tune dates to 15th-century France and was first paired with the English words in a hymnal published in 1861. The mournful tune climaxing to a hesitantly hopeful refrain pairs perfectly with the lyrics, that sink as low as the Israelite Exile before soaring to the heights of faith in a future Emmanuel who shall come and “cheer us by thy drawing nigh.” In fact, almost every stanza is a mini-Gospel, reminding us of our need for salvation, the promise of a Savior, and a reconfirmation of the faith held by the singers. Take stanza four, which may be less familiar but is a powerful encapsulation of our hope: “O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem, / unto your own and rescue them! / From depths of hell your people save, / and give them victory o’er the grave.”
I will certainly spend many hours of my Christmas vacation watching movies, listening to Nat King Cole, and drinking hot chocolate – soaking up “the most wonderful time of the year.” But I hope I can also keep sight of the great truth embedded in hymns like “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” – the joy of Christmas only shines bright if we remember the darkness that would otherwise surround us. “For all the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ]. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)
