Cathryn Howse

Apparently it is a typical female trait to like a song for the melody and not the lyrics, and therefore I make no excuse for my “femaleness”. Song words appear to have very little effect on me personally. With the exception of the first line, I don’t even hear the words let alone remember them. I think of it as a kind of ‘word deafness’, similar to the affliction of certain members of my household with the word ‘housework’. Apologies to those who agonise over hymn choices every Sunday – it must be like educating pork!

The song that I have chosen as my favourite is an instrumental version of ‘O Come O Come Emmanuel’ by Casting Crowns and the reason it is my favourite is because it is simply a beautiful arrangement of strings and piano and the effect is quite haunting. The melancholy of the music expresses the longing for Jesus in a way that words cannot. Jesus come to us and ransom captured Israel – it’s poetic. Also, I wish I could play the violin like that!

Back to the words! The words that echo to me through the piece as I listen are ‘O come O come Emmanuel and ransom captive Is-ra-el’ and ‘rejoice, rejoice!’ which makes it a worthy version for this alone, beauty and simplicity. As I said I can usually only remember the first line so the first two lines and part of the chorus is a triumph! The original words are in 9th century Latin and the letters of the titles spell the word SARCORE which reversed spells ERO CRAS meaning ‘I shall be there tomorrow’. Put simply, this is traditionally sung on Christmas Eve and is the answer from the One we call.

One commentary puts it better than I can:
“…(the words) sum up the longing of Advent as they depict the desperate plight of humanity in need of a Savior, and address Christ with seven grand titles, pleading with him to come save his people. The verse we know as the first was actually the last, climactic verse in the series.”

I realise that this is an Advent hymn but I was asked for my favourite and I cannot think of a time when it is not appropriate to long for Jesus to come into our lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roy3Ft6Fvbk