O

ANTIPHONS

an advent
devotional
As the darkness of winter draws in around us, we feel the
darkness of the world drawing in with it.
The warm sounds of carols don’t seem to fit the cries of the
homeless, the orphan, the grieving, the cold, and the hungry.
We the church hears those cries. We notice the strange mix of
voices. We stand in the shopping mall and hear the cry of the
needy. As we gather to pray in the darkness, we remember the
words of God’s people, crying out to God for salvation, for
help, for healing, for new life.
In the last seven days of Advent as we pray for the coming of
Christ, the “O Antiphons” are the words that we sing. Each
verse of the “O Antiphons” is a name of Christ, mentioned in
Scripture. Each verse ends with a plea for the Messiah to
come. As Christmas approaches the cry becomes more
urgent.
This devotion follows the pattern of the “O Antiphons,” one for
each of the last seven days before Christmas Eve:
December 17 O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
December 18 O Adonai (O Lord)
December 19 O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
December 20 O Clavis David (O Key of David)
December 21 O Oriens (O Dayspring)
December 22 O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)
December 23 O Emmanuel (O With Us Is God)
Join with the church in this Advent devotional, a journey of
preparation as we remember Christ’s first advent among us
and await his return.
The first letters of these titles in reverse order form a Latin
acrostic: “Ero Cras.” “Tomorrow, I will be there.”
Pray with the church, with one another, as we cry out together,
“Veni, veni Emmanuel.”
“O come, o come, Emmanuel, and save your people.”
O SAPIENTIA
O WISDOM

17

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of

the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
Read
Proverbs 1.20; 8; 9
1 Corinthians 1.30
Sing (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”)
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.
Reflect
Wisdom cries out to us in the streets, Wisdom who was
with God in the beginning of all things. She was there when
the circle of the seas was written on the deep waters, and
she is there now, crying out to us to turn and seek after the
Lord.
Wisdom is something after which we all seek. We want to
be thought of as wise people, as people who know
something about the ways things work. Being wise means
we know something about the order of things, and Lord
knows, we want to be wise.
But wisdom is something more than just an astute
understanding of how to get along in the world. It is more
than common sense and street smarts. These words from
Scripture remind us that wisdom is rooted in the Lord.
Wisdom is the One who comes to be with us, the One who
was there when we were made, the One who became for
us righteousness and sanctification and redemption in
order that we might know God.
Prepare
What is happening in my life that I need to examine in light
of God’s Wisdom? Am I doing something that is an
obstacle to the happiness of heaven?
O ADONAI
O LORD

18

O Lord, and leader of the House of Israel,

who appeared to Moses in the fire of the
burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched
arm.
Read
Exodus 3
Micah 5.2
Matthew 2.6
Sing (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”)
O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Reflect
“Lord” is the name that the people of God used in place of
the four-letter name too sacred to pronounce. And yet that
same Lord made covenant with a people. God bound
God’s self in relationship with a people, a people who often
rebelled and disobeyed and turned away from God. In this
covenant God gave the people the law as the ways to live
with God among them. The Lord delivered them from
bondage to Pharaoh and unending slavery. He went before
them with arm outstretched.
Then the Lord came as a shepherd. He came in the form of
a servant, as one born in a manger. Foreign kings feared
him and wise men came looking for him, and yet he was
wrapped in thin blankets and laid in a cow trough.
What a strange Lord we have, full of beautiful
contradictions. He came among the flames of a burning
bush and the thunder of Sinai’s mount. He came in Mary’s
womb and on the wood of the cross. He comes even now
in the bread and the wine. Come, Lord, come and save
your covenant people once more!
Prepare
Am I seeking after a relationship with God? What can I do
to prepare myself for a deeper relationship with Christ?
O RADIX JESSE
O ROOT OF JESSE

19

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign

among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.
Read
Isaiah 11.10
Romans 15.12
Revelation 5.5
Sing (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”)
O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.
Reflect
The Lord promises the people a great ruler, one who will
come from the house of David, Israel’s beloved king. In this
word for today, Isaiah tells us that this kingdom of David
son of Jesse would be destroyed. The people of God will
be scattered for their disobedience and sin. As the
darkness grows, as the people turn further away from God,
the sounds of destruction and war grow louder, the people
are scattered among the nations of the world.
Even after destruction, a root remains. From this root
grows the tree of our salvation. But roots are sometimes
small and unnoticed. Hidden in the earth, the life, the
promise waits in the roots for spring. Christ, the Root of
Jesse, does not come as we expect. He comes hidden in
Mary’s womb, not as the conquering king we might have
hoped for. But we also know that no matter how messy
our lives become, no matter how tossed about we are by
the ways of the world, we can cling to this sure and deep
root. This tender shoot is an ensign, a rallying flag for all
peoples that becomes the mighty tree of a great kingdom
open to all.
Prepare
What must be cut out of my life to make way for Christ?
What am I hoping for this Advent?
O CLAVIS DAVID
O KEY OF DAVID

20

O Key of David and sceptre of the House

of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open;
Come and lead the prisoners from the
prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the
shadow of death.
Read
Isaiah 22.22
Revelation 3.7
Sing (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”)
O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Reflect
Keys are the things which open doors and shut them.
Jesus is the Key of creation, of new life and new possibility.
He can open our prisons and free us. He can also lock the
city gates for our safety. What he opens, none may close,
and what he locks away, none may open.
In Christ God entered our history. He entered our lives,
unlocking them in the ways only he can. He will come
again at history’s end. To his church he gave the keys of
the kingdom, to bind and to loose. So today we praise the
authority of the Messiah with the symbol of a key, as we
ask him to unlock the prisons of darkness and the chains
of sin and death that still bind us. We ask him to free us
from our boredom, from our selfishness, from our power to
harm others, and from our bent toward sin. We ask him to
bind the evil powers of the world, to lock them up and cast
them into the outer darkness.
And what this one frees, none may bind up again. For this
one is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the holy one,
the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no
one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
Prepare
What can Christ free me from that is keeping me from
loving him and loving my neighbor more freely?
O ORIENS
O DAYSPRING

21

O Dayspring,
splendor of light eternal
and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in
darkness and the shadow of death.
Read
Malachi 4.2
Luke 1.78-79
Sing (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”)
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Reflect
In the beginning God spoke a word and the light sprang
into being. The light fills all of creation with warmth, just as
the sun warms the earth grown cold during the long night.
Just as God makes the sun rise and set each day, the Lord
would not have to do anything to end creation. God would
have to stop doing something. God would have to stop
sustaining it with a word. All of creation, our lives included
is the daily and ever present act of the Son who fills all
things with the light of life. He is the Dayspring from on
high.
He came into the world to bring light to those who sit in
darkness. How often do we live in the shadow of death?
How often do we think we can hide from God and from
one another in the shadows of our own thoughts and
actions? He sheds a cleansing, powerful light on all things.
Nothing escapes his power and presence, like like glorious
light of the dawning sun that chases away darkness,
disease, and doubt. He chases away the chill of our
selfishness and desire. Instead, he fills out lives with
warmth and life abundant.
Prepare
Where do I need Christ’s light most in my life? Where and
when am I trying to hide in the shadows?
O REX GENTIUM
O KING OF THE
NATIONS

22

O King of the nations, and their desire,

the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.
Read
Revelation 15.3
Psalm 118.22
Isaiah 28.16
Matthew 21.42
Sing (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”)
O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.
Reflect
In this man Emmanuel, we are given space to become
God’s people. We forget, the promise of a Messiah came
to Israel, God’s chosen people among the nations. And we
were Gentiles, outsiders, unclean and apart. We were not
Israel. Even when Israel looked at us and wanted a king like
ours, we were still not Israel.
But in this one who comes, all the nations, all the peoples
of the world find their one true king. In him we are bound
together with all other people. No longer are we separated
from one another, for we are made one in his body. There
are no longer Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free. All are one in
him.
This is not just a nice idea. This is a powerful, sometimes
painful unity. When our brothers or sisters suffer, we suffer.
When our brothers or sisters rejoice, we rejoice. Look
around you, at the people closest to you. In this King who
comes, we become one. We, though we are many, are
made one as we share in the body of the King of Peace.
Prepare
How do I separate myself from others? How am I breaking
the body of Christ with hate, with evil words and actions?
O EMMANUEL
O WITH US IS GOD

23

O With Us Is God, our king and our

lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Savior:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.
Read
Isaiah 7.14; 8.8
Haggai 2.7
Matthew 1.23
Sing (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”)
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Reflect
Never in a million years could we imagine that God would
want to be this close to us. In fact, we would often prefer
God would stay away. We like thinking that God might be
watching occasionally, but we don’t care for the idea that
God would come so close to us as to be born among us,
walking with us in our flesh.
But this is the great scandal of our faith: God wants to be
with us so much that God would come in the flesh. The
one who made all things and without whom not one thing
came into being has come among us to save us.
We could have never made this up on our own. We could
not imagine this good news by ourselves: “Look, the young
woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name
him ‘Emmanuel.’” With Us Is God. This is the good news of
Christmas, the name of our salvation, our lives, our
wholeness, our perfection.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, remembered this
great truth again in the last minutes of his life: “Best of all,
God is with us.”
Prepare
Am I ready to receive Christ? What is keeping me from
receiving him and the life he brings?
CHRISTMAS EVE
A Nativity Hymn by Charles Wesley
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.
Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display Thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.
Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.