O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, awaited by the nations and their Savior, come and save us, O Lord our God

Here we are at our final O Antiphon, even on the exact day it would be sung. Here we find, Emmanuel, which translates as 'God with us'. We could start talking about the origin of this name in a Hebrew prophecy, given to a king of Israel, and whether it really is a prophecy of Jesus or muddled good wishes to a king for a son and successor or what it means for a virgin to bear a son or even whether virgin is the right word for the Hebrew term. We could do all that, but I think we would have lost the point of this anitiphon.

That point, I think, is that God is with us. That is, we aren't talking about a God who has just pushed the world into motion and stood out of the way nor are we talking about a God who is ever on the watch to catch humans at some petty breach of an equally petty law code, so He can punish them. We are talking about a God who is truly with us, who knows what it is to be human and who wants the best for us and is willing to act to help us towards that. That was the whole reason for Jesus coming to Earth over two thousand years ago- to challenge what is wrong with the world and to bring us back to the goodness which God created.

Yet, this may still sound abstract and vague. It doesn't have to be. It really just takes being attentive to the little things, where God can break through the ordinariness of everyday- through some quiet time in the morning, or a conversation with a friend or a random act of kindness (your own or someone else's). Those are all evidence that God is with us and you. After all, as St. Paul says, "If God is for us, who is against us" (Romans, 8, 31). So, my wish for you as we approach Christmas is that you'll see  Emmanuel wherever you go, this Christmas season.