O Adonai

 This antiphon considers Christ more specifically as Adonai, the God of the Covenant, and the Ruler of the house of Israel. O Adonai focuses on Christ’s divine nature and speaks of how Christ himself appeared to Moses in the burning bush and gave him the Law on Mount Sinai. In Exodus 3:7-10, we read that God called out to Moses from the burning bush and told him that he witnessed the affliction of his people in Egypt, that he heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, and that he knew well what they were suffering. He, therefore, tells Moses that, for that very reason, he has come down to rescue them and lead them out of Egypt into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. In the Advent mystery, we encounter Christ who as God comes to rescue his people from slavery and lead them into freedom. He takes them from the drudgery of slavery to the freedom of divine worship, in the words of the Benedictus: he set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life. We pray that he come (veni) and redeem us with outstretched arm. The Church, then, rejoices in the power of God, evident in the Incarnation, to save his people, bringing them from slavery to the freedom of the very children of God.