“O Come, O Come, Immanuel”

Whether he understood the proper context of his words or not, the 12th-century hymn writer captured the mood of a remnant of Jewry who were longing for the appearance of the Christ. Theirs was a time when national dreams had faded and personal aspirations were being suppressed by tyrannical Rome. Her emissary, Herod the Great, was a man given to seducing Jewish youth for paganism and crushing thos