“On this mountain He will swallow up the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; He will swallow up death forever.
The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from every face and remove the disgrace of His people from the whole earth.”
As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ’s infant arrival, we also long for Christ’s promised return—to set all things right across the whole earth. Through this season of already-but-not-yet, what do we do as we wait, wait, wait?
We turn to seven ancient prayers harkening the Old Testament’s promised Messiah. “O Wisdom!” “O Adonai!” “O Root!” “O Key!” “O Light!” “O King of the Nations!” “O Emmanuel!” we cry. “Come!” we sing to our rescuer and our ransom.
We desperately need wisdom from on high. We need Adonai—the Lord—to arrive and redeem us. We need the root of Jesse to nourish us. We need the Key of David to unlock our chains. We need the rising Sun of Justice to shine upon us. We need that King who is the deepest desire of the nations. We and all of this “wounded world” need Emmanuel: God with us.*
Malcolm Guite artfully translates the old “O Antiphons” into fresh poetry. Wait with these words:
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.
*adapted from Tish Harrison Warren’s Advent: The Season of Hope. Image “Night” by Odilon Redon, 1910-1911.
Grace & Peace,
Karen Wright Marsh, Executive Director