The first Latin I ever learned by heart was in primary 5. Our music teacher taught us to sing ‘O Come All ye faithful’, in Latin
Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes,
venite, venite in Bethlehem;
natum videte regem angelorum:
[Refrain:]
venite, adoremus, venite, adoremus,
venite, adoremus Dominum.
The feeling of achievement, speaking in an ancient language, and the sense of power in knowing something so odd; it was satisfyingly mysterious.
More than sixty years later I can still repeat it verbatim. I also remember the school choir singing this at the carol service in our wee rural school, feeling we were the last and the first word in educated diction and tamed mischief.
And that second verse, which we sing with so much sincerity, joy and wonder, quotes key phrases in the Nicene Creed. Who would have thought that seventeen centuries later, folk like us, living in 21st Century Montrose, would be singing words that have shaped and preserved our understanding of Jesus as Son of God and Son of Man. “God of God, Light of Light, Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb; Very God, begotten not created. O come let us adore him!
Why does all this matter? Because we make the long journey from Advent to Christmas for reasons more important than the presents and the cards, the food and the carols. Christmas is the day when as Christians we are given the chance to begin to wonder once more.
Bethlehem was no big deal, other than the birthplace of David. Mary was in her middle teens, and struggling to understand all the changes of a woman’s body bringing a child to birth. Joseph had his own thoughts, but he stuck by Mary, then and later. Rome wasn’t interested in a Jewish couple eloping to Bethlehem, just so long as their names were captured by the tax census. Herod, like all small minded tyrants, could only hold on to power through fear, violence and deceit. And those journeying Magi were the kind of exotic star-gazing travellers you were likely to meet where the trade routes crossed. From outside the story everything was ordinary. But from inside the story everything was about to become extraordinary.
Thinking of that outside animal pen we may well sing of the little Lord Jesus, and accept the carol is mistaken, because like all babies, quite a lot of crying he makes! If you’re like me you can manage the first few verses of ‘The First Noel’, but the refrain seems to go on forever, and even singing the shorter version, you’ll sing Nowell 20 times! And yes, some of the carols say exactly what we want to say – “Hush the noise you men of strife and hear the angels sing.” But always, always, the best carols bring us back to the miracle and the mystery.
This howling infant, leaving the warm security of the womb, was the long promised Messiah. Wrapped in blankets against the chill of the night, being fed by an exhausted mother, is the one whose name is Immanuel, God with us. The naming of the baby is much more than keeping a family tradition and identity, “You shall call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.”
So there we have it. The utterly normal, billions of times repeated event, of the birth of a new human being, a baby. And in that same event, God comes amongst us in human form as promised Saviour, as redeeming Love, as the desire of the nations, as the hope of the ages. As “God of God, Light of Light…very God, begotten not created.”
“Welcome, all wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span,
Summer in winter, day in night,
Heaven in earth, and God in man!
Great little One, whose all-embracing birth
Lifts earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to earth.”
O Come, let us adore him. Or as my amazing music teacher would say, “Adeste fideles…venite adoremus!”
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