Imagine you were standing before some great king. A man who wielded complete power. A man whose every whim was obeyed, whose pleasure was life and whose wroth, death. You might find yourself a little nervous. You might find yourself gone temporarily mute.

Well that is how earthly kings, all human beings are before Christ. This antiphon grabs up 4 different sections of Isaiah’s prophecy and beautifully compresses them into one earnest prayer. He is the “root of Jesse.” that’s from Isaiah 11. That is, he is the source of Jesse. But of course He is also, as the same verses teach, the branch that grows from Jesse’s stump. For He is the great son of Jesse’s great son David. To Him the Lord God will give the throne of His Father David!

And He is an ensign. That’s from Isaiah 11:10. An ensign is a banner, a rallying point for an army in the midst of battle. That ensign is His cross. Jesus says, “I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to Himself.” And so Jew and Gentile alike will come to do him homage. The last verses of Isaiah 52 speak about how kings will be mute before Him. And Psalm 2 tells how the kings of the earth better “kiss the Son lest he be angry.”

This strong one. The root and offspring of Jesse. David’s Son yet David’s Lord. King of Kings. He is coming to deliver! He is coming to take His cross and crown. To bleed His precious blood. For you. And through that cross to gather you to Himself.

Come quickly, O root of Jesse!

O come thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny,
Who trust Thy mighty power to save,
And give us victory o’er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel.

“I barely recognize you.” If it’s been 20 or 30 years since you’ve seen someone, you might say say so. Well at the time of Christ’s first coming it had been about 1000 years since the revelation of God referenced in our antiphon. And there’s no way you’d recognize in the manger-babe the God who called to Moses out of the burning bush, the terrifying Lord that thundered from the mountain, gave the law to His people and killed 3,000 of them for making and worshiping the golden calf.

Yet that small voice is the same one that called to Moses from the bush and those tiny arms are the mighty right arm of the Lord who once thundered on Sinai. The appropriate reaction to this is holy fear. As Moses who took off his shoes to stand on that holy ground and then lay down before the presence of the Lord on the mountain. Yet it is so strange that this Lord, this master, should come to us so. As a child. For He who gave the law has now come to fulfill it. He who is our Lord, came to pay all our debts and redeem us from sin, death, and the devil. He whose holiness was seen then in thick cloud and smoke, in judgment and wrath, now will show that holiness in a perfect life of love and then in suffering himself underneath the black wrath of the Judge. All so that He might be your Lord again. That just as He brought His people out of Egypt with a strong arm and so redeemed them to be His people so he might also make you His own by leading you out of death and hell to be His very own.

O Come, O Come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times didst give the law,
In cloud and majesty and awe:
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to Thee O Israel!

In proverbs Solomon advises us, “The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom.” What he means is that wisdom begins with the desire for and determination to have wisdom. It is recognizing that one does not have wisdom in himself and that one desperately needs it. This antiphon prays for exactly that. Further it also recognizes where the true and full wisdom comes from.

Proverbs 8 teaches us that Christ is wisdom personified. This is the same as John 1 saying that Jesus is the Word made flesh. For it is the mouth of the Lord which pours forth wisdom (Proverbs 2:6) and it is on “every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3) that man is to live. That word proceeding from the mouth of the Lord is Jesus Christ. He is the one who became for us wisdom from God. And it is His Word which is able to make you “wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:15).

In sophomore year English class, Prof Sullivan used to begin the year by having us all say “I am ignorant.” His point was, we should begin the study of something by recognizing our ignorance about it and then gain knowledge. No one who thinks he is wise in himself will ever be able to find wisdom. But in this prayer we pray for Christ to come as our wisdom because we recognize that we do not have it. We do not know how to order our lives for our own or our neighbor’s temporal and eternal good. We do not know ourselves or our God. We do not know the way to life eternal. But Jesus knows all these things. He Himself is these things and teaches these things. He opens His mouth and by soaking in His Word we find wisdom. We find wisdom in His law which teaches us about ourselves and our neighbors and our God. It teaches what duties we owe and how we ought to order our lives and live in this world. It also shows us the spiritual truth about our status before God as sinners. That is, it teaches us that we are not wise ourselves.

Jesus then also gives us the wisdom of the gospel, that is of the cross, which is our salvation. Here is a philosophy that actually works! It leads to eternal life. O come, wisdom and teach us!