Come, Desire of nations come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the Woman's conquering Seed,
Bruise in us the Serpent's head.
Adam's likeness now efface:
Stamp Thine image in its place;
Second Adam, from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,
Glory to the Newborn King.!

Not as weird as it may sound. The mortif of Christ as the Second Adam is ancient. The reference is to Genesis 3:15. The Serpent has enticed Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, Eve in turn has enticed Adam, and thus the ruin of the human race is accomplished. God says to the Serpent: '. . . I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it [the woman's seed] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel' (AV, which was doubtless the translation that Charles Wesley of the 'weird verse' had in mind).

The idea here is that Christ reverses the Fall, thereby bruising the Serpent's (Satan's) head and fulfilling the words of Genesis 3:15 in a profound way. The Woman's conquering Seed is quite explicable in this context: Christ is, through his Mother, a descendent of Eve, and conquers the Serpent; hence he is 'the Woman's conquering Seed'. (It is the Serpent and not the Woman whom he conquers, in case anyone misundersood that). Adam's likeness after the fall included subjection to the dominion of death, through which Satan rules the world (see Romans 5). By his Resurrection, Christ destroys the dominion of death and restores the true image.

It all makes sense. (If you don't want a theology lesson, don't post messages about weird verses containing theology!)

Stephen (Pravoslavnyi, as you may recall from last year's thread).

PS: here's an exercise for you: parse the stanza of 'Silent Night' that goes:

Silent night, holy night,
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face.
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.