Advent’s O Antiphons: Adonai

December 18, 2025

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to your tribes on Sinai’s height
in ancient times did give the law
in cloud and majesty and awe.

On the West Bank, Palestine, in the city of Bethlehem, lies the oldest site continuously used as a place of worship in Christianity, and the Church of the Nativity, the oldest major church in the Holy Land. Constantine the Great originally commissioned the church’s construction in 325–326. Later destroyed, it was rebuilt by Byzantine Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565) and still stands today.

Below the church, in a grotto connected to a series of caves, pilgrims and curiosity-seekers gather around a fourteen-point silver star on the ground which marks the site traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ. To access this significant site, visitors must stoop through a four-foot high door, originally built to thwart the carts and horses of thieves from accessing the grotto. Those days long gone, the “Door of Humility” remains as a symbol and act of reverence and humility.

In the O Antiphons, the ancient songs of waiting and expectation, the second title given to the Christ (or Light, or Love, or Universe if you prefer) is Adonai, the Hebrew word for Lord, a title taken from two stories of Moses: O Adonai and leader of Israel, you appeared to Moses in a burning bush and you gave him the law on Mount Sinai. O come and stretch out your mighty hand to redeem us.

“Lord,” however, is not a title Americans appreciate because it sets someone above us, or apart from us, in this land of mythical equality. If memory serves, we fought a war to rid ourselves of lords and kings. We especially don’t want to bow before anyone! Yet that Door of Humility, forcing visitors to slow down and demonstrate respect for something and someone greater than each of them, intrigues me as I imagine the countless streams of people over the ages who have done so. I wonder if it changed them in any way.

We may not care for lords, yet we bow to all sorts of them: our emotions, especially anger and resentment; our money; our desire for power or control; our biases and prejudices; our arrogance; our addictions; our greed; our own wants and wills and illusions. How are those lords helping us? This particular Lord, Jesus Christ, allowed himself to be stripped of all these little lords, to come into this world not as an impetuous, over-bearing ruler, but as a servant and model of Love. Are we willing to bow down and do the same? O come and stretch out your mighty hand to redeem us in this broken world. Only love can restore it, and us.

O LORD, build in us a desire for you and open our hearts to receive you. Help us to enter humbly and with reverence through the doors of our hearts into your presence where we lay aside our false lords. You are the Lord of Love, of Compassion, of Justice, of Peace, of Reconciliation. Help us know how to serve you and wrap us in your mantel of love that we may know how beloved we are to you. Grant us in this season of gift-giving the gift of love and then embolden us to share it.

Advent blessings ~ Rosemary

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel by Chris Tomlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH7asSGxAxA

Photo credit: Pixabay