I love the hymn ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel.’ It is a haunting tune that reminds us to stay and sit a while in the tension of advent before the celebration of the arrival of the Christ child. Advent (Latin for ‘coming’) is commemorated the four weeks before Christmas. It is a good reminder that God’s people spent years and years longing and waiting for a Messiah as they lived under oppressive empires, sometimes exiled from their homeland. The first words of the hymn cry out: O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. It is no…