O Come, All Ye Faithful Verse 3

Yea, Lord we greet Thee

Born this happy morning 

Jesus, to Thee be all glory giv'n.

Word of the Father

Now in flesh appearing.

O, come let us adore Him (3X) Christ the Lord. 

One of the things people don't get about Shakespeare is the thou versus you distinction.  I love teaching it, actually.  Basically, you and thou used to serve the same purpose in English that usted and tu do for Spanish and a host of other languages with similar patterns.  Usted, in Spanish, is the formal pronoun you use with strangers, bosses, etc.  The people you don't know well or aren't on equal footing with and who like for you to recognize that.  Tu is informal, for friends and also underlings, with a slight flavor of contempt.

Thou used to be the informal, tu, form.  You was the formal, usted, form.

I still remember a graduate school moment when a classmate gasped at what might look like an innocent line, "She just thou'd the prince!"

It's basically the opposite of how we respond to errant Thees left in sacred prayers and songs from a time when we had a codified distinction rather than relying on vocal tone.  We see it as fancy and alienating rather than a proof of familiarity.

But I see a wealth of potential contradiction turned into hope in the cohabitation of the words "Lord" and "thee" in the first line; not to mention the "to Thee be all glory giv'n" in the third line.

What a gift Christ gave us, just by coming to earth.  By becoming human, even if He did nothing else.  Even if He hadn't died for our sins and defeated death.  He brought us close enough to Him that the "Thee" is appropriate.  We are familiar, of the same kind now.  The "thou" is appropriate.  We are called friends, as Jesus later told his apostles.

And yet God has lost no glory.  He has not lost His Godly nature.  He is our Lord while also a person we can "thou" without offense.  He is to be given all glory, but we give it as to a friend, a fellow.  The best of us, unquestionably.  God and Creator and Teacher and Guide...but ours.  Not beyond our reach even if He is beyond our comprehension.

Equality is impossible, but familiarity is not.