O Emmanuel

December 22:
O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, expectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos Domine Deus noster.
O Emmanuel, our King and Law-giver, the desire of all nations and their salvation: come and save us, O Lord our God

The clear source for the O Emmanuel is Isaiah 7:14: propter hoc dabit Dominus ipse vobis signum ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium et vocabitis nomen eius Emmanuhel. “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” Emmanuel as a title only appears twice in the Hebrew scriptures, both times in Isaiah (the other is Isaiah 8:8), and in its quotation in the birth narrative in Matthew 1:23.

The other titles given are more common, but they repay pursuit. Legifer - lawgiver occurs in Isaiah 33:22, in an oracle about the glorious future that God will give his people: “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our ruler, the LORD is our king; he will save us:” Dominus enim iudex noster Dominus legifer noster Dominus rex noster ipse salvabit nos. This passage introduces as well the verbal element of savior: ipse salvabit nos, which is taken up in the antiphon’s last phrase.

“Desire of nations” - expectatio gentium is a little harder to pin down, but my guess is that it refers to Jacob’s oracle concerning Judah in Genesis 49:10: non auferetur sceptrum de Iuda et dux de femoribus eius donec veniat qui mittendus est et ipse erit expectatio gentium: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his.”

Emmanuel in this antiphon is not simply the little child who is a sign in Isaiah. In Isaiah 7 the birth of the child is a sign to Ahaz the King of Judah to hold fast to God against the kings preparing to war against him. Immanuel means God-with-us, and the clear meaning of the child’s birth is that nothing will prevail against the favor God has for his people if they will be faithful to God no matter what the tribulations of the moment, because God is present among his people. In Matthew the angel appears to Joseph to tell him of Mary’s conception of the child by the Holy Spirit. This is not going to be welcome news at first to Joseph, and so Joseph is to hold fast in faithfulness, as Isaiah asked King Ahaz to do in the face of tribulations. The angel quotes Isaiah’s prophecy directly to Joseph. In Christian tradition the idea of God-with-us has developed from God’s protection of the people in time of war to God’s own presence in his world, bringing it back through lawful rule to its salvation, in the Incarnation, the God-with-us, the Word made flesh.

This last of the original series of Great O’s also reinforces the social and political message of the series. The child to be born will be, by implication, the fulfillment of Jacob’s promise of universal rule, the savior whose righteous law is what all peoples desire and the culmination of the ancient promise of God to his people.

O Emmanuel, you paradox at the heart of our faith, a child and a king, an infant and a lawgiver, for whom have longed since the beginnings of human confusion, Come and give us the law we need, Come and be the king we need, Come and fill our desire for the human future we so fervently pray for.