When I was in diaconate formation, the
final exam in our Christology class required us to analyze a Christmas carol and
explain what it tells us about Christ and our faith. It was an interesting assignment that really
made me think about the real meaning of the songs I’ve sung by heart since
childhood. So with a nod to Sr. Kathleen
Flanagan, S.C. (my Christology professor), I thought I’d blog about a few
carols over the next couple of days. On
the occasion of the fourth Sunday of Advent, I’ll start with the ubiquitous
(and seemingly only) Advent carol – O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.
Although I’m sure you know the
words, I’ll reprint them here for your convenience:
O Come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
What do we learn from the words
of this beautiful hymn? Well the opening
line takes us right to the prophesy of Isaiah that we read on this, the fourth
Sunday of Advent: “The Lord himself will
give you this sign: the virgin shall
conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)
This portion of Isaiah, which is believed to have been written in the
late 8th or early 7th century BC, refers to the Assyrian
captivity of Israel when the northern tribes of Israel were conquered and taken
away by the Assyrians, never to be seen again.
In this passage, Isaiah announces the coming of the Messiah, the anointed
one who will save Israel from its oppressors and institute eternal peace, the
one who will be called Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” So the opening line of this carol is a
plaintive prayer, begging for the Messiah to come – for God to be with us – and
ransom us from our captivity.
You may ask, “what
do you mean us?” Well, while the
prophesy certainly is speaking of the ten tribes of Israel who were captured by
the Assyrians, it also speaks to all of us all of the time. “Israel” can be understood to mean all of God’s
children, i.e., all of us, and our captivity refers to our enslavement to
sin. In sin, we separate ourselves from God and his Kingdom, so we mourn in lonely
exile here.
Now
let’s turn to what we mean by ransom. To
understand this term, we have to look at the legal concept of redemption – ransoming
something or someone. The
Judeo-Christian understanding of redemption has its roots in a Jewish family practice of buying back lost
goods or property or a person who was enslaved.[1] Examples
of this practice are found in Scripture in connection with the Jewish understanding
that the first-born male belonged to God.
The Jews presented their first-born sons to the Lord on the fortieth day
after birth and redeemed them by paying five silver shekels to the Temple
priest. (Numbers 18:16) A passage from the Book of Ruth illustrates
the practice of buying back one’s relative who is enslaved or indebted to
others. This passage suggests that a
redeemer must possess at least three qualifications: (1) the redeemer must be a close relative of
the person to be redeemed; (2) the redeemer must have the means (financial or
otherwise) to redeem; and (3) the redeemer must be willing to redeem. (Ruth 4: 1-11). Jews also associated the practice of redemption with God’s salvific
activity, particularly in light of the salvation of the people of Israel from
exile in Egypt and the Babylonian captivity.
For example, the Hebrew Scriptures refer to the children of Israel as
the “redeemed of the Lord” after their release from the Babylonian captivity. (Isaiah 35: 8-10) So in the Judeo-Christian context, redemption
came to be understood as “the work of God in delivering his people from
spiritual bondage unto Himself.”[2]
That, of course,
brings us to Jesus. The New Testament
professes God’s definitive salvific act in the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus. Christians saw humanity as being
enslaved by sin and death. But as Saint Anselm explained, “sin against an
infinite God was infinitely wrong, and could not be satisfied or atoned for by
mere finite human beings. . . . Only the
Son of God could perform such satisfaction, and he did so freely and lovingly
sacrificing himself for us.”[3] Jesus, the God-Man, satisfied all of the
qualifications expected of a redeemer:
(1) as fully human, he shared fraternal kinship with all of humanity
(John 1: 14 – “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”); (2)
as fully divine, he was able to ransom humanity from the infinite wrong of sin
against God and the bonds of death (Hebrews
9: 14 – “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit
offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to
worship the living God”); and (3) he willingly gave his life to redeem
humankind (John 10: 18 – “No one takes[my life] from me, but I lay it down
on my own”).
Click here to listen to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel performed by Pentatonix.
[1]. Brennan Hill, Jesus the Christ
(Mystic: Twenty-Third Publications, 1996), 232.
[2]. “Redemption,” in The Anchor Bible
Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5:654.
[3]. Brennan R. Hill, Exploring Catholic
Theology: God, Jesus, Church and Sacraments (Mystic: Twenty-Third
Publications, 2006), 172.
No comments:
Post a Comment
God is listening . . . comment accordingly.