Tuesday, December 17, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 17th of December 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

On yesterday’s show, I correctly stated that Christmas was celebrated on the 25th, which was cemented in the 300s. And because I had just mentioned the Birth of Christ and BC, I said BC. I assure you they were not celebrating the birth of Jesus 300 years before the birth of Jesus.

Or were they? Interestingly, today’s show takes us into a “Pre-Christmas” world in a few senses of that idea.

It is “pre-Christmas " now that we are in the season of Advent (but please don’t be that person saying, “Actually, it’s Advent…” no!). The Church calendar can be a beautiful gift to adorn the gospel or a cudgel to beat people over the head with—you decide.

But we are in the “pre-Christmas” season of Advent. Because Christmas isn’t a “moveable” feast day, we don’t have a calendar week to count down to It, like we have a “Holy Week” before Easter.

But Christmas is as central to the faith as Easter is- the two are inseparable for the good news- and so perhaps Christmas should get a little “Holy Week” of its own- and for over 1,000 years Christians have observed today, the 17th of December as the beginning of the Golden Nights- which could be the Hockey Team in Vegas or a Richard Marx song… but it is not. The “Golden Nights” refer to the 7 days before Christmas in which special services were held. And so, the “Golden Nights” are like Holy Week for Christmas.

And at these services, there was a tradition of singing what you may have heard of before as the “O Antiphons.” An Antiphon is a fancy word for “a little song part added to the beginning of your regularly sung songs.”

And this is another way in which today’s show is “Pre-Christmas” because these particular “Antiphons” sung on the Holy Nights leading up to the Nativity all begin with the call “O” (Which is like Hark! Or Lo! Or Lookit!”) and then to recognize the Christ Child as the fulfillment of “Pre-Christmas” or “Hebrew Bible” prophecies.

And each day, starting on the 17th of December, you would call out in song one of these Old Testament prophecies and its connection to Jesus. For many, this tradition, outside of its remnants in Roman Catholic and Orthodox settings, came down to us in the form of a “Christmas Carol” from the 19th century- with their obsession with “ancient” hymnody to give the new music some authority. The fascinating John Mason Neale (we’ve done a show on him before) took the O Antiphon tradition from the Golden Nights and gave us ‘O Come O Come Emmanuel”- the “O Come” is the “O” part and “Emmanuel” is just one of the 7.

But, if you turn in your hymnal to… probably somewhere near the front (Advent is the beginning of the new year), you will find many if not all of the stanzas to that hymn where you will find the six other “O Antiphons”- starting with the one recognized on this, the 17th of December.

The second stanza begins, “O Come O Wisdom from on High”. This recognizes the “wisdom” present at creation, a shadowy figure at best was pointing to what the New Testament will call “the Wisdom of God”: Jesus Christ. The other antiphons include “Adonai” (or Lord), the Branch of Jesse, the Key of David, etc. go to the mothership at 1517.org and type in “the O Antiphons,” where you can get a free devotional guide on each of these from my pal and colleague Chad Bird.

As we continue on through these Golden Days and Nights in anticipation of Christmas, we will continue with regular programming until Christmas Eve and Day, when the almanac will have something in the style of the daily show, for the season.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and a continuation of Isaiah 11- a first and second advent reading

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,


The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze;

Their young ones shall lie down together;

And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,

And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

As the waters cover the sea.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 17th of December 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who dares a Christian daycare to call itself “the cobra’s hole.” He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who would explain that it was a messianic name and no actual cobras would be on the premises… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.