Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent. It marks the beginning of a new Christtian year and the start of the period of Advent leading up to Christmas.
Advent comes from the Latin "adventus" which means "coming" or "arrival". It refers to the period of waiting for the coming or arrival of Jesus Christ, both in terms of his first coming as a baby born in Bethlehem and his second coming in glory at the end of the world. A third sense, which we do not often focus on, is the coming of Christ to live in the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit.
The long run up to Christmas, much longer in the world of modern commerce than in the church calendar, is one of my favourite seasons of the year.
The great advent hymn, "O come, O come, Emmanuel" can be sung with any of the three senses of the coming of Christ in mind.
I was very interested to learn recently that though the words and music of this great hymn are ancient, they were not joined together until the 19th century, when John Mason Neale translated a medieval Latin text into English in 1851 and then got his friend Thomas Helmore, who used a French medieval sacred tune and reharmonised it to work with Neale's words. For many years there was doubt as to whether had actually composed the tune and only claimed to have "discovered" it. However, in 1966 it was established that it was an ancient French tune. The tune is known as VENI EMMANUEL after the Latin text's opening words.
The resulting text and tune combine to make one of the greatest of advent carols. I could not imagine going through advent without singing this great hymn at least once.
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