Emmanuel

by Hillary McFarland

Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

e sat in prison. Tomorrow, or perhaps a few days from now, he'd be headless. Some called him a wild man and others a prophet, but now he was only condemned. His life had always been a strange one...strange, like his stories. Not the least of which his mother liked to tell, the one about how he danced in her womb when God drew near. When he was young he'd shrug and duck a little when she repeated it again and again. “Come on, mom,” he'd say, and she'd light up and rough his hair and then gaze deep in his eyes, hands locked on his shoulders. “But it's the truth,” she insisted, fervent and strong. “Truth, John.” Timeless and full of fire, her eyes never seemed to age even as raven locks faded and her grip loosened over the years.

     He missed that grip now, here in the dark, and pressed his back into the cold stone of the prison wall. I can handle prison, he calculated. He could handle the chains, even though his own cousin claimed He came to set captives free. Really, cousin? What about these? He moved his arms and skin tightened against iron.

     The voice he knew so well, before birth even, repeated in his mind words boldly proclaimed in the synagogue that day, the day his cousin was nearly thrown off a cliff. The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me. And he winced knowing exactly how those brown eyes glimmered when his friends uttered The Question. The one he sent them to ask; the one that kept him up at night, sleepless and burning even in the cold.