O Come, O Come Emmanuel
There was a time in my life where Christmas was like magic. I remember being 11 and running around my church, still enraptured by the sensations of the season. It wasn’t Christmas just yet — it was the beginning of December, and every year, the church staff would haul out a towering tree and swaddle it in dimmed lights and shining decorations, waiting for the tree lighting ceremony. There would be cookies and candy canes for all the children, snow outside, and no school to look forward to. They even had a photo booth in a side room with ridiculous hats and props so all the moms could have family holiday pictures to show off.
At home, we had stopped putting up the tree. My mom was raising three kids herself, and setting up, getting needles everywhere, dropping ornaments, then tearing down at the end of the season was a bit too much. So every year, I’d look forward to the one at church. I still loved Christmas wholeheartedly then, with childlike abandon. It hadn’t lost its shine on me yet, and I loved every part of it (except for the holiday pictures). Christmas was a time of celebration and joy, and I was looking forward to it with every fibre of my tiny heart.
I remember sitting in the front row on the left side of the church sanctuary, where the tree stood. My closest church friend sat next to me, and we were listening to Bruno Mars’ “Count On Me” on repeat on my iPod Shuffle. Then, the ceremony began and we rose to sing hymns.
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appears
Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!
Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!
Even as a little kid, I was always struck by “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” While songs like “Joy To the World” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” are loud and blatantly joyous, “O Come” was, in a word, haunting. It’s quiet, subdued, even somber. Yes, there are other quieter, softer Christmas hymns, but they are peaceful, soothing even.
But in “O Come,” there is pain deep in the soul of it. It is the crying out of a people in captivity, who suffer at their own hands and the hands of others, seemingly abandoned by their God. It is not as raucously hopeful as some Christmas songs tend to be. It reaches out cautiously, not wishing to hope for too much, not daring to rejoice without its hurt. I didn’t appreciate it all those years ago, at least not in the way I do now.
When I look back at my younger self at Christmas, I can’t help but mourn for her, especially now. Along the way, that brazen love for Christmas faded when all the good things with Christmas became complicated. My relationships with my family changed as we got old and moved for school, our interests changing. Gifts lost their magic when I became a teenager that people didn’t know what to get. This year, we’re separated from family and friends, losing the experiences that actually made holidays fun. My church, the one I grew up in for all these years, has problems that I’ve woken up to, and I’m starting to transition out of it. Things are not shiny and bright and perfect. There is pain in each of the things that disappoint us.
O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight
Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!
Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!
I discovered Sufjan a couple of years ago, and I fell in love with the way he perfectly captures all the weird, multi-layered facets of Christmas in his own way. He does it here on “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” too. The song trods slowly, the banjos strumming a steady beat, the woodwinds singing its eerie melody. Sufjan’s voice sings clear and crescendos with crashing drums at its end. I think it’s a perfect rendition of the hymn in a lot of ways. It doesn’t lose what makes “O Come” so special.
In the song’s pain and haunting melancholy, it dares to hope in deliverance. Deliverance from pain, suffering, grief. And in that deliverance the song hopes for, it rejoices. In the agonizing disappointments and sorrows of life, it chooses to cast them out and clings to faith in something greater than itself. In a lot of ways, it’s a prayer that feels like shouting into the void, at least for me. But sometimes, that is all we have.
I might not have the same belief in Christmas magic, or even in life, that I did so long ago. Disappointments find a way to beat most of it out of you, however depressing that might be. But I can still sing this song, cautiously reaching out, hoping for deliverance, believing that there is something greater on the horizon to cling to. And until then, I rejoice — in the good and the bad, in what I’ve been given, and in the things that matter, even when they hurt.
Jocelyn is a student studying media production at Ryerson University in Canada. She once almost talked to Andy Shauf at a show and then chickened out. You can find her on Instagram (@ay.jocelyn) and on Twitter (@Lupins_).