[Another installment a bit late as I expend energies on personal matters.]
O Clavis David,
et sceptrum domus Israël,
qui aperis, et nemo claudit,
claudis, et nemo aperuit:
veni, et educ vinctum
de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris,
et umbra mortis.
O Key of David,
and scepter of the house of Israel,
you open, and no one shuts,
you shut, and no one opens:
come, and lead the prisoner
from jail,
seated in darkness
and in the shadow of death.
This is rendered in the well-known Protestant hymn:
O come, thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
A key offers access, presence, a place. It confers authority. He who has the key gains entry to that which is shut, and is able to determine who enters into the royal presence and who does not.
It is not well-received today to say that only in Christ is there access to the Father. But such declarations have never been well-received. Sadly, even those who today bear the name of this Key of David, waffle on this and invent all sorts of alternative pathways to the Father, and ridicule and persecute their own for defending this exclusivity. But if we deny that Christ is the only access to the Father, we not only sin against those who died because they held this truth, we sin against him who himself said this very thing.
But if the King is the one who rightly holds the keys of the kingdom, it is within that King's power to confer those keys upon whom he will. And just as Eliakim was given those keys in the days of Israel's kingdom, so, in the present kingdom of our Lord, has Peter been given those keys. And while Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians will differently understand the significance of the conferral on Peter of these keys, they nonetheless are united that Christ in fact conferred that authority upon the apostolic foundations of his Church, and it is that apostolic foundation which was given the authority to forgive and to retain, to open and to close—in the name of the Lord of the Keys.
So while it is in Christ that we are granted access to the Father, Christ himself willed that we come to him in this Church founded upon his apostles. We have access to the Father only in Christ, and we have union with Christ only in his Church. Christ leads the prisoner from his dungeon to and in his Body. Christ harrows hell, to be sure, and the door he opens to the captive is himself, which is to say, that place where he lives and dwells, his Body, the Church.
The beauty of what this Key of David grants is not just rescue but renewal. We are not just redeemed as a person, we are incorporated into Christ by virtue of his Body. We are healed by becoming a member of a new nation, a special race. The isolation of our darkened cells is not merely alleviated but positively healed with the community of the New City, wherein old national, ethnic and racial differences are swallowed up and fulfilled. And these bishops upon whom are conferred the keys of the Kingdom, open wide the doors to us, that through water and fire, baptism and chrismation, we may safely gain access to him whose presence we seek and who compels us to come to him.
O Key of David, open to us this dungeon that we may flee, and your royal throne room that we may enter, and know both surcease and renewal, and freedom from death and life.
[Note: This is posted from the road, using the rather hinky hotel in-room wireless access. (The story behind the being in a hotel room is another family holiday nightmare, but that will wait for another telling.) This post, however, is completed on time as promised.]
O Radix Jesse,
qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos,
jam noli tardare
O Root of Jesse,
who stand as a sign for the people,
kings stand silent in your presence,
whom the nations will worship:
come to set us free,
put it off no longer.
This is rendered in the well-known Protestant hymn:
O come, O Rod of Jesse free,
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
Ours is an age which, comparatively, is upside down and backwards. Instead of a fall from a golden age, ours is an ever-upward progression to a golden age. Instead of the advancement of the self in the service to the polis, we now seek self-advancement from the polis. In the polis, then, is our own individual salvation into a golden age that is ever yet on the horizon.
We have it on divine authority, however, that the ancient world's view of reality as a fall from a previous golden age is the more correct—though in itself, it, too, suffers from some deficiencies. We are not progressing ever-upward toward a increasingly bright golden age. We are devolving ever more deeply into the dark abyss of the evils of human sinfulness and its cosmic consequences. Our technologies bring us not greater depth of character, but an ever-increasing mechanistic dehumanization in which the rapid decaying of the body—set in motion by our own personal advents into this fallen world—is shored up by the cutting and augmenting of the flesh. The human person is ever and increasingly commodified, with occasional head tilts to marketable and manipulable emotion and sentiment. But for all intents and purposes, ours is a monistic view of human salvation in which the physical body is saved from dys-ease through leisure and surfeit. We are increasingly moving ever upward to the ability to fully calculate every aspect of the physical body. This is the coming golden age for us, where near-perfect but empty husks fine-tune the calculus of self-pleasure.
In our midst, however, is a sign for a different golden age. Not the golden age from which we've fallen, and which we can never again restore to ourselves. Not the golden age so far distant from our memories that it cannot but seem an idle dream as the phantasmagoric nightmare we endlessly create and augment descends incrementally upon us. No, this is a golden age given to us by sheer grace. And it's sign is the fullness of the nightmare we are bringing upon ourselves. Its sign, is, to advance in the festal order from the Nativity and “Little Lent” to Great Lent and Holy Week, that of the shredded gory bulk of a man hung from the blood-soaked tree while the darkness coalesces and descends, and one of us, ignorant of the import of his announcement, speaks the rain-spattered gospel: Truly, this was the Son of God.
What is this sign, this signum, this root of Jesse? It is the restoration, or, perhaps more accurately, the consummate fulfillment of the prelapsarian world, wherein the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the lion and the calf dwell in peace together; the bear and the cow graze together, the lion eats grass with the ox; and the nursling plays over the cobra's hole, the weaned child shoves his hand in the adder's den. It is the fulfillment of the images of Isaiah 11 in Mark's longer ending, wherein poisonous snakes have no effect upon believers.
But there are, in fact, two trajectories here. We are not simply stumbling in our sin-drunkenness inch by inch into hell, we are too visited by this consummation of the Kingdom. The two paths, one from a golden age, the other to a golden age invade the same space. Indeed, the herbivorous predators already graze near the ravenous killers. The one is set to die, the other already lives for ever.
We live, then, here, in the between and betwixt, in a world sliding down into the abyss, into which has broken a new nation for whom the consummate fulfillment of all our origins has begun. We are dying, and yet in dying are finally becoming alive. We inhabit bodies which mortality has bound, but some of which grace keeps incorrupt. We eat bread and drink wine that left to itself will molder and decay, becoming poisonous, but which, by being invaded by the coming golden age of grace now brings not merely nutrition and sustenance, but healing and, indeed, immortality.
This is the sign of Jesse: the fullness of the Godhead dwelling bodily in a man, who bestows upon all his brothers and sisters, the participation, in him alone, in that divinity. This is our golden age: becoming gods by grace.
Sign of Jesse, free us from the sin-besotted death we ingest daily. Free us and all your creation from this mortality, and the sin which is its coin.
[Note: As promised, this is a couple of days late. I should be back on schedule with the next entry on the 25th.]
O Adonai,
et dux domus Israël,
qui Moyse in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
O Mighty Lord,
and leader of the house of Israël,
who appeared to Moses in the burning bush,
and on Sinai gave him the law,
come to redeem us with outstretched arm.
This is rendered in the well-known Protestant hymn:
O come, O come, thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai's height
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty, and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
Ours is a most conventional view of law. We generally view the law in propositional terms, which terms may or may not (usually not) conform to some natural reality. This is not a recent distinction. Even the ancient world knew the distinction between those laws that were the verbal (and therefore rational) expressions of the moral law of the universe and those laws that were merely conventional expressions of local necessity. The difference, however, is that in the ancient world, the epitome of the laws of the polis was to express the moral laws which undergirt the cosmos and its ordering. The ancient view of the law was that of a tool for molding and shaping the soul in virtue. The law alone could not accomplish this, of course, it would take an embodied discourse, soulish exercises, but most of all a particular way of life supported by such discourse and exercises to so shape the soul that, through habituation, it would become fixed in virtue. The law, in other words, was not merely propositional, but was an exemplar of virtue which served as a paedagogy for the soul.
This ancient understanding of law was similar to the Jewish conception, as well as the Christian, if deficient compared to them. For the Jews, the Law was, indeed, an instruction, a teaching, in a way of life conformed to the God who personally gave it. The Law was, indeed, an exemplar, but more than that it was the living communication of the covenantal God. In the Law was revealed that about the Personal God of the covenant which served to uniquely identify Israel among her neighbors. In Christ, this distinction reached fruition: the Law was now Incarnate, the Law was, in fact, a Person. Jesus of Nazareth. The Law not only revealed the Lord--the Lord, himself, is the Law. In his Person is crystallized not simply the summation of all the propositions expressed verbally by the living God, not simply the enumeration of all the commands and prohibitions, but was, hypostatically, the sum of the will of God. He is the crown of the Law, its essence, its boundary, its pure disclosure to man of the things of God, of God himself.
This Law redeems us from the debt of sin and death, this Law leads us in the way of the man-befriending God, not by virtue of propositions and principles--or at least not by way of these alone--but because the Law is intrinsically personal. It once revealed the person will of the God of Israel--and still does--and it now reveals, to the degree that we are able to know, him of the mighty and outstretched arem. That arm that was nailed to the tree.
Law of God, Personal revelation of the Most High, redeem us from all our iniquities, by thine own mighty, outstretched, nail-pierced arm.
[Note: Today's post is the first of a series of reflections for this year on the "O Antiphons" sung during the forefeast, or the week prior to, the Nativity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Huw will also be blogging reflections on the "O Antiphons" (his invitation is here).
I'm a couple days late with this first installment, and will likely be late for the next installment on the 20th, since it's not clear whether I will have internet access where I'll be. But I should be good for the 25th and the remainder of the days.]
O Sapientia,
quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem fortiter,
suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.
O Wisdom,
who proceeds from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching out mightily from end to end,
and sweetly arranging all things:
come to teach us the way of prudence.
John M Neale and Henry S. Coffin render these verses in the well-known hymn:
O come, O Wisdom from on high,
who orders all things mightily,
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
Wisdom and order are the hallmarks of this created world, and of God's dealings with us. Prudence, prudentia, or, in Greek, phronesis, is, according to the ancient world, that practical knowledge that grasps the first principles, knows those things that are universally true, and weaves them together with intimate knowledge of the particularities of experience to produce a beautiful way of life. This Wisdom from on high, who lives this way of phronesis, though, is not some impersonal divine intellect thinking the thoughts which give reality to the universe. Nor is this some deity distant from his handiwork, content to fashion, or pass on to the fashioner the task of making, this world, only to settle back for eternity in blissful contemplative rest.
No, this God, this Wisdom from on high, not only speaks the universe into existence, but, clothes himself with creation, indeed, with the particularly human. He does not merely tell us the way, he shows us the way.
Christianity is ever and always a way of life, not a summary of precepts. There are things to know and to believe, but such knowledge and belief are only the threads of the tapestry of a beautiful life, a life crafted from the particulars. Wisdom became a man. Not everyman, but this man Jesus, born of Mary, raised by Joseph, lived and died in a specific place and time. This Wisdom was embodied so that not only might we know the way, we could follow him who is the Way. We not only know the God-man, Jesus the Christ, but he has been seen, he has been touched, he has been heard. He is life. The life he lives is light. And when we follow him, we embody by grace that light which he is. We are illumined.
Now seeing that to which we were formerly blind, we acknowledge a terrible grace and beauty to all that is around us. We live in the meantime, and time is so frequently very mean. But illumined by grace, the translucent veil of the glory which is and which is to come, the glory that is his, we see that the bitter is bounded by sweet, chaos with order, randomness with arrangment.
Wisdom from on high, teach us the way, show us the way. Arrange all things most sweetly for mercy for us and not for judgment. Come, Lord Jesus.
O Virgo virginum,
quomodo fiet istud?
Quia nec primam similem visa es
nec habere sequentem.
Filiae Ierusalem,
quid me admiramini?
Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.
O Virgin of virgins,
how shall this be?
For neither before was any like thee,
nor shall there be after.
Daughters of Jerusalem,
why marvel ye at me?
That which ye behold is a divine mystery.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
The Virgin shall bear a Son. And he shall crush the head of the serpent. Mary. Birthgiver of God. Mother of our Lord. Our Lady.
This was almost the only time of year that, growing up Protestant in the Restoration Movement churches, that I ever heard much about Mary. We were exhorted to the submission and obedience she exhibited. And we marveled that a human woman would give birth to Him who was Everlasting God. But I don't ever recall meditating overlong on the significance and singularity of Mary.
God spent not only all of Mary's life co-working with her to prepare her for the Incarnation, he spent all of human history working to the day when Mary gave birth to her firstborn, a Son. Mary's Son is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. There was no other woman God could have depended upon to give her humanity to our Lord. “At the right time” Paul says, “Christ was born of the woman.”
This is a marvel. We do well to wonder, that through the long ages, out of the countless people who'd lived, God kept narrowing his focus, the point of the wedge became smaller and smaller, until it all coalesced in one young woman in Roman-occupied Israel. In a moment of time, in the space of a breath, in an as-yet-unformed intention, hung all the labors of God from before the creation of the world.
“Let it be to me . . .” says the Virgin. And in a mystery shut to human pretension, him whom the heavens and earth could not contain, condescended to be circumscribed in the womb of Mary. And with the Virgin's “Fiat mihi,” her “Genoito moi,” all of heaven and earth now rejoices at the mighty act God has done.
Never before her, nor ever since, has any woman been so favored by God. Truly, the Birthgiver of God, is she whom Gabriel called, “Full of grace.” Truly, as Mary herself prophesied, all generations have called her “Blessed.” In her womb was accomplished salvation, the union of humanity with God by his great mercy.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
O Emmanuel,
Rex et legifer noster,
expectatio gentium,
et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos,
Domine, Deus noster.
O Emmanuel,
our King and Lawgiver,
the one awaited by the gentiles,
and their Savior:
come to save us,
Lord our God.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
Desire of all nations. Emmanuel. The Gospel in a nutshell. Our desire: God with us. In the dark and cold of winter, God with us. In the bright sunshine of spring and summer, God with us. In loneliness and belonging, in calm and chaos, God with us. In sleeping and waking, in life and death, God with us.
In a transplant ICU in a Pittsburgh hospital, when the mother-hopes of the decades-ago birth of a firstborn son begin to fade one by one, this is a time when desire, presence and God conjoin. When the new life born out of present suffering, this young boy, Lucas, too young to understand, even too young later to remember, looks uncomprehendingly at medical technology and this person lying in a hospital bed, this is a time for a God who is with us. When the fierce fight to survive, to live, of a young Oklahoma son loses its force, when time is measured in milliliter drips, punctuated by beeps and chirps and the breath-like sound of machine pumps, this is a time for Emmanuel.
Our secularized world does not understand Christmas. If it did, it would cease now with the bright lights, the relentless onslaught of packaged muzac, the greeters and the plastered smiles. It would halt forever the talk of consumer spending, of “Christmas cheer,” and the checking of lists. If this secularized world took its wisdom from Holy Mother Church, it would disconnect the lights, take down the tree, put away the music, and don sackcloth. It would sit in ashes. And it would look in on an ICU room in Pittsburgh and go there and learn wisdom. It would go to meet God with us.
The atheists and other anti-Christian bigots have it wrong. Christians didn't take over pagan holidays and call it Christmas. Rather, Christians simply lived out what Christmas means. They stormed the beaches of darkness, turned the waters red with their blood, and planted the Holy Cross firmly in the soil of death. It was not an attempt to copy someone else's celebration. It was a mission to trample down death by death. Dagon bows before the Holy Ark, hands and feet broken in pieces on the threshold. God with us.
It is cruel, this dying of loved ones during the season the world knows as Christmas. Unutterably cruel. But God is with us. God knows what it's like to watch the slow, horrible death of a Son. On the bitter cold walks on Chicago's streets, in Pittsburgh's hospitals, in the long, silent moments of the deathwatch, God with us.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
O Rex Gentium,
et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis,
qui facis utraque unum:
veni, et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti.
O King of the Nations,
and the one they desired,
keystone,
who makes both peoples one,
come and save mankind,
whom you shaped from the mud.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
Cornerstone. We usually think of those ornamental things at the corners of large buildings. We don't usually think of them in substantial ways. If the cornerstone is true, if its angle is precisely correct, the rest of the building will conform itself to the “truth” of the cornerstone. That is to say, the building gains not only its existence but its rightness from the cornerstone. Indeed, its entire unity derives from its conformity to the cornerstone.
Mankind cannot but seek heaven. Encoded in them is this image of God which resolutely awakens the yearning for the fulfillment of that yearning. We desire Life in all its fullness, and we desire unity with our neighbor. And all of human history may be seen as consequences of paths wrongly chosen, the hubris of self-creation, the counterfeiting of life.
In the coming King, the Babe in the Manger, is met all the desires of all mankind for Life and unity, for the cessation of strife and the overthrow of death. But we refuse to see the end of all our yearning, and mistake Emmanuel for our enemy. Or at very least, fail to see how a Jewish baby, even one become an itinerant first century rabbi, can be the locus of our fulfillment.
So we substitute and reinvent. Instead of discipleship, we seek “personal growth.” Instead of the now-and-not-yet Kingdom of heaven, we opt for the right-now of political utopia, pinning our hopes for peace and prosperity on the mortal princes of men. Instead of our daily bread, we look for manna in the stock portfolio. We seek first all the things added, and only then the Kingdom of God.
We need no experts to tell us how well this paradigm is working. It is precisely because we believe we must take our provision for ourselves that we find ourself at enmity with our neighbor. We live in a world of God's abundance. But we act from a perception of mortal scarcity. Our utopias ravage human lives and our wars steal the bread from the mouths of generations.
We need a King to lead us. We have that King, for God-with-us has come to us, will come to us, and prepares for us a home.
Only by confirmation to the Cornerstone, by being made building blocks of his Temple, will we not only be grafted onto Life itself, but all our existence will conform to that Life. We will know unity with our neighbor. We will eat manna and wear the wardrobe of lilies. And we will know what it means to never be forsaken.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
O Oriens,
splendor lucis aeternae,
et sol justitiae:
veni, et illumina
sedentes in tenebris,
et umbra mortis.
O Dawn,
splendor of eternal light,
and sun of justice,
come, and shine
on those seated in darkness,
and in the shadow of death.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
In winter, here in Chicago, I have the pleasure of greeting the dawn by prayer. As it so happens, our fireplace, and the mantel on which is our prayer "corner," faces directly east. There are two small stained glass windows on either side of the fireplace, with sashes just about eye level. (The windows sit high up the wall.) When I pray, I turn on a small low-wattage lamp, and light the vigil candle. The rest of the house is dark and silent. I pray in a hushed voice, or whisper, and face the icons. About halfway into my prayer, the windows begin to take on greyish color, and out the north window I can see the sky start to turn pink and orange.
If you stand and watch for it, dawn comes unnoticeably. There is rarely a point at which you can say, "Here it was not day. Now it is day." Dawn only becomes noticeable once it has already crept up on you. You can say, "Ten minutes ago I did not notice it was becoming day. Now I see that it is." The temptation, of course, is to make dawn come early. To stumble into the front room with the icons and the prayerbooks, turning on each light in the room as you make your way to the front of the house--to stand in brilliant, but imitation, light is, or at least it is to me, very unsatisfactory. Even on the coldest days (and the front room, being the north room, is the coldest in the house), there is something warm about the gradual dawn. Warm, and hopeful.
It is said that when Christ comes again, he will appear in the east. I take it that such a premise comes from the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus says, "For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man" (Matthew 24:27 ESV). But it makes perfect sense to me. If the inauguration of the Kingdom of God is made on the eighth day, the day of eternity, then the final consummation of that inauguration should happen from the eastern sky, whence all our earthly days begin.
It is a day which will bring release, full freedom from bondage, and the fulfillment of all justice. That day has already begun to break. Already the sky brings forth grey tones, and promises of final fulfillment. But the full day has not yet dawned. Evil, bondage, suffering must yet remain with us, must yet be an integral part of Christian striving and holiness. We remain always barely satisfied, we remain hungry yet, as with all creation we groan awaiting his coming. The more we console ourselves with this-worldly happiness, the less vigilant we will be of his coming. The more effort we expend in making his eternal reign an earthly kingdom, the less peace and justice we will see in our lifetimes. Ours is to awaken the sleepers, and to keep our lamps trimmed. We have here no earthly hope. Here all we have is the bondage of illness and suffering, of injustice and evil, of the chaos of the passions which infect all we are and do. We cannot free ourselves. We can but wait, and pray and strive and hope.
Come, O eastern Dawn. Shine on us, and make us whole.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
O Clavis David,
et sceptrum domus Israël,
qui aperis, et nemo claudit,
claudis, et nemo aperuit:
veni, et educ vinctum
de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris,
et umbra mortis.
O Key of David,
and scepter of the house of Israel,
you open, and no one shuts,
you shut, and no one opens:
come, and lead the prisoner
from jail,
seated in darkness
and in the shadow of death.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
The Key of David is an image found in a couple of places in Scripture. Once in Isaiah 22, where the Lord, having taken exception to Shebna, King Hezekiah’s secretary, for his presumptive building of an expensive tomb for himself, thus displaying a failure to understand and appreciate the coming judgment and exile of Judah, promises to replace Shebna with Eliakim. The new steward of the house, with access to all the royal rooms and buildings, including the prison house, will be Eliakim. Isaiah writes:
In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house. Isaiah 22:20-23 (ESV)
But this sturdy peg, upon whom are placed the hopes of all his father’s house, will not escape the coming judgment in the armed hosts of the Babylonians, and will, with the rest of Judah, be cut off, and all the hopes hung on it coming crashing down like tin cups.
This Key of David is found again in the Apocalypse. Here, it is in reference to the Church at Philadelphia, one of the seven Churches of Revelation, about whom the Lord has nothing critical to say:
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” Rev. 3:7-13 (ESV)
Once again, the theme of judgment and suffering is sounded in concert with the image of the Key of David. How is it that this one, in whom all access to the Father is given, will also be judged? St Peter tells us:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. 1 Peter 3:18-22 (ESV)
This Key of David is the harrower of hell. Our Lord is not only him who goes to prepare a place for us, in the many roomed house of God, but is also him who has preached the Gospel of Life to the dead, and emptied hell of all those called to eternal life. The Key of David has, himself, become subject to judgment and death. He has become sin for us, and received in himself the due penalty for our sins. He has tasted death, and thus having been resurrected from the dead, given the Father’s seal of approval, there is no hindrance to the freedom from death that Christ brings us. The dead in Christ will live, for hell has already been swallowed up in victory. In Christ we will not escape suffering and death, because even our hope of freedom from death is a path itself carved through the valley of the shadow. We must walk that pathway of suffering and death, but we walk it as free, knowing that our hope lies firm behind the veil of the holy of holies.
As we await the Advent of our Lord, here among our darkening days and killing frosts, we are given small glimpses of these images. Darkness overtakes the light. We are constrained and huddled against the encroaching cold. But real suffering is ours, too. The pain of untimely death. The suffocating despair of poverty. The heavy shackles of failure against images never meant to be real. We are aliens to ourselves and to one another. This aging body, heavier and slower, is not the young self we once knew. This growing impatience and irritation at slights more imagined than real, affronts to our self-created dignity. We snap and snarl now as false gospels of prosperity and worldly peace fail to materialize and to satisfy.
Come, Key of David. Lead us from jail, from shadow and darkness. Come, Harrower of Hell, and make us truly free, truly alive.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
O Radix Jesse,
qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos,
jam noli tardare
O Root of Jesse,
who stand as a sign for the people,
kings stand silent in your presence,
whom the nations will worship:
come to set us free,
put it off no longer.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
Root of Jesse. Descendant, branch of the family. Christ is the descendant of Jesse, the offspring of David to whom God had promised an eternal throne. And David sang, “Who am I, that God would thus show me his mercy?”
This Root is a sign. On him the Spirit of the Lord rests, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. This Root is a righteous judge, who vindicates the oppressed and kills the wicked. Righteousness and faithfulness gird his loins and belt his waist. Our judgments are flawed. We fight to enact justice, only to further oppress. But the Root of Jesse enacts perfect justice and perfect peace. Isaiah says of him:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:6-9 (ESV)).
This Root is a sign of whom all the nations shall inquire, and who shall gather his remnant from among all peoples. Indeed, in Paul, the Root is particularly a signal of hope to the nations (Romans 15:8-12). This descendant of David, Israel's Messiah, has become the hope of the world, the goyim, in whom passionate conflicts cease, who restores the ordered creation.
This Root is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. The revelation of Christ given to John reads:
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying,"Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth."
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped. (Rev. 5:1-14 (ESV))
And the nations are silent at this sign. Kings are more often pawns to their own advisers. Kings can be bribed and placated. But what does one do with the slain Lamb? How can one manipulate him who rejected all temptation? What reply can we have to one who became sin for us? Only him who was crucified could reveal the unfathomable judgments of God's mercy. And the only response to such a one who in being killed conquers all, is self-abasement.
The Latin of the antiphon which is here translated “whom the nations will worship” may better be rendered “whom the nations will entreat” or “to whom the nations will pray.” But prayer and worship are separated by no distance greater than the length of one's love. For the heart that prays, entreaty is worship. For the heart that worships, all entreaties are prayer.
The Root of Jesse stands in our midst, a slain Lamb, as a sign. Rendering righteous judgments, girded by faithfulness. This Root is solid, strong. We may place the weight of all our hopes and expectations upon it, and let fall those which are not truth and integrity. Our prayers and entreaties, founded on such faithful promises, confronted by the marvelous image, soon lapse into silence. Not even Kings dare recline in the presence of the Root of Jesse. All our crowns cast down at his feet, we can only be still, amazed and awed at the terrible mercy of his peace. Worthy is the Lamb.
What are these hopes and expectations? What are the content of these our prayers and entreaties? In all things they are little more than the hope of restoration, the promise of life and wholeness. During these dark days we long for light even when we are unaware of such longing. And so the mother that prays over her sick child may know nothing of the Root of Jesse, may never have heard the song of the many-eyed Lamb. But in that Root, in the work of that Lamb are all her hopes and desires fulfilled. The husband who sits silent in the empty house, pierced by faithlessness, bereft of the family that once was his, stolen the hearts of his beloved by another less worthy than himself, this man's longings can only be met ultimately in him who was forsaken by all and calls all to himself. The young woman who stares at herself as an alien thing, exiled in her own body, will one day find her integration in the lightning flash that will split the sky east to west. The young man who lingers at day's end behind all his co-workers, and mystified at the utter banality of the profession he sought with such passion, will in the call of Jesse's Root the daily measure of manna that will grant him life.
The Root of Jesse has appeared to us, marveling the nations. Struck dumb, faint with longing, we cast our crowns at his feet. Grant us deliverance. Make haste to help us.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
O Adonai,
et dux domus Israël,
qui Moyse in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
O Mighty Lord,
and leader of the house of Israël,
who appeared to Moses in the burning bush,
and on Sinai gave him the law,
come to redeem us with outstretched arm.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
The burning bush. I AM. Thunder and lightning on the mountatin top. Lawgiver. He who is. He who gives to us words of life, which are a bread more nourishing than any man can fashion. And in his Person and through his lifegiving words, he redeems us. Not in niggardly minimal doses, but with power and excess, with an outstretched arm. This is our God. This God is our Lord Jesus Christ, who comes to us anew as we await him in this Advent.
The God of the burning bush is a God whose name cannot be known. All that can be know of him is that he is. But this God of fire manifest himself to us in the burning bush, and for us the world is set afire by his footsteps. His very being is light and life, and we, in our darkness and mortal corruption cannot but be burned by his living fire. And in being burned, we are made clean, whole. That lie is consumed. That contempt for our neighbor is engulfed. That dark and loathsome inability to escape our despair, that acidie, that demon of the noon day, is lit, smoking and flaming, with the glory of God. I AM has spoken a word which will not be denied.
That word is Law. And because the I AM has spoken it, that Law is life. The Latin Lex cannot adequately capture the fullness of the Heberw Torah. The Latin carries the connotation of process, convention, juridicy. But the Scriptures describe "Law" as instruction in the way of life. It is the difference between an instruction which says, "Drink this pure water; eat this wholesome bread. By these you will live." and that which says, "This is not poison, this is of no danger; it will make you wise and give you joy." The one is the manna from heaven. The other is the delightsome apple. The one is given and received. The other is taken and takes. This Law is. It needs no defense or proof. How does one prove that reality is real? One does not. One simply accepts it, and trusts. It is the delusion that needs proof, that needs buttressing against doubt. And thus it is the lawbreaker who must be most resolute against the word spoken which delivers.
This redemption of the Lord is not by half-measures. It is with outstretched arm. Not an arm which barely raises the hand in gift-giving. Not an arm which merely restrains. But one that commands in its gesture, with a power so deep, so thorough and so mighty it goes to extreme lengths to save. What is the measure of such lengths? Nothing less than the life of the Law himself. This word whose judgments prevail has travelled down the length of that outstretched arm and come to us. Come to us with life, to die to give us life.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
[Note: Today's post is the first of a series of reflections on the "O Antiphons" sung during the forefeast, or the week prior to, the Nativity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Huw will also be blogging reflections on the "O Antiphons" (his invitation is here).
The "O Antiphons" are normally seven in number, with the eighth, O Virgo virginum, used according to the Sarum rite. They are sung as refrains to the Magnificat during Matins, on each day of the week prior to the Nativity (16 or 17-23 December). Each antiphon reflects both an aspect of Christ's Person, and ties that to salvation history beginning with the Creation. Given my own personal history with Our Lady, I will be employing the eight antiphons (as will Huw).
If anyone would like to join us in posting their own reflections, we are spreading out the antiphons over the forty-day Nativity Fast according to this schedule:
15 Nov O Sapientia
20 Nov O Adonai
25 Nov O Radix Jesse
30 Nov O Clavis David
5 Dec O Oriens
10 Dec O Rex Gentium
15 Dec O Emmanuel
20 Dec O Virgo virginum
May your Nativity Fast, and the coming Feast, be filled with God's presence and the joy of the Gospel!]
O Sapientia,
quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem fortiter,
suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.
O Wisdom,
who proceeds from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching out mightily from end to end,
and sweetly arranging all things:
come to teach us the way of prudence.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.
As we look at all of the O Antiphons together, we see that they form a consecutive series of refrains which recount salvation history, from the creation of the world, the calling of Israel, the promise to David, the harrowing of hell, the Resurrection, and the awaiting of his glorious coming. (The Sarum liturgy adds an eighth antiphon, one to the Theotokos, a call to fully stop and contemplate these great mysteries, as our Lady herself did.) These events are reflected in the very Person and life of our Lord, and as such invite us to go further in the struggle of salvation.
It is said that in Christ, "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3 NKJV). Indeed, Paul has already told us, "For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist" (Colossians 1:16-17).
This combination of wisdom and creation in our Lord is as ancient as Christianity. And it confronts us here, the first of the "O Antiphons" as we draw close to the feast of the Nativity. What does the antiphon have to say to us here as we turn to face Christ's birth?
Christ is that wisdom that was from the beginning and set creation in order (Proverbs 8.22-31). Christ is that wisdom without which we cannot know God (Proverbs 8.32-36). Christ is the wisdom who cries aloud in the streets and raises his voice in the market (Proverbs 1.20) and he is the invitation of the Spirit and the Bride to come (Revelation 22.17), an invitation to knowledge, the fear of the Lord. Christ is also the King of kings, leading forth the armies of God to set right, to reorder, the creation--a reordering which follows an invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19.9-16).
Christ it is who makes straight our path. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5.17). Outwardly wasting away, inwardly we are renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4.16). This transformation of soul and body, however, can only come about through the wisdom of Christ, who learned obedience through the cross set before him (Hebrews 5.8-9). This wisdom is our wisdom, if only we have the mind of Christ in us (Philippians 2.5-11), the same mind that brings the humility of cross-bearing. It is this struggle of faith, this daily taking up our cross, which teaches us prudence, because, like Christ, it teaches us obedience to God the Father.
For us, struggle, pain, rejection, are occasions for questioning God. They are occasions which test our faith. But, if we are in Christ, they are occasions where we may learn obedience and humility. These teach us prudence, and in prudence we are able in Christ to rightly order all things. In the midst of chaos, we may have peace. Having come through the battle, we come to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Christ is born to us. Glorify him.