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Malcolm Guite, “O Emmanuel”

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.

Go ahead and read the poem first. Now go back, and read it again, but slower this time. Take note of the punctuation marks, and use them to pause your reading. Don’t focus too much on the line breaks, but on the sentences. What do you notice? Now, read it again, but this time out loud. Did you notice anything different this time? Taking inspiration from the hymn, the poem begins by reminding us what the name Emmanuel means—God with us. The world has been waiting for this moment, and now that it has happened we participate in re-creating the story each year, beginning in Advent, now waiting for Christ’s return. God becoming man is what we call the incarnation, meaning to be embodied. Having spent so much of 2020 online, I can tell you that I still long for this embodiment, this incarnation, not only in how I worship God, but in how I seek to know and love others.

The poem then identifies these different names for the coming Son of God. While the name is ‘unspoken,’ he is recognized as the ‘Root’ of Jesse, the ‘Key’ to redemption, and the ‘King’ of Heaven. The poem continues asking for this one to come. By using the contrasting image of ‘folding’ and unfolding, the author illustrates how Christ’s coming to us is redemptive for the life of the world. By making ‘this wounded world’ a ‘womb,’ Christ now prepares the world, and each of us, for the new life that is about to be born as we step forward into redemption.

The next line beautifully says one of the reasons why I love studying (and talking!) about the incarnation. ‘O heart of heaven beating in the earth,’ that is who Jesus is. Not only is he the son of God but he is God himself, and his heart holds all the goodness, truth, and beauty of heaven. And somehow, that same heart is here on earth, touching and tasting, trying and growing, smelling and seeing, loving and knowing. And why has he come? He has ‘come to be born, to bear us to our birth.’ It is only in Christ’s own life, his birth, that he then invites us to participate in life in him, so that we are born into new life. We wait in the womb of this wounded world, and already are born in this new life in Christ. As we wait for Christ, we are reminded that we don’t wait alone. Christ waits with us. In his birth, Christ brings new life to the world, and invites us into that new life as well.


Peace,
Rachel