Tag Archives: o antiphons

O King of All Nations — December 21

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Since the 8th century, during the last seven days of Advent, leading to the Christmas celebration, the Christian Church has been singing a set of antiphons that were written as introductory prayers for the singing of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer. They are popularly known as “The O Antiphons” and serve as the basis for the well-known hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Each day uses a name for the coming Messiah drawn from the messianic hopes of the First Testament. They proclaim the coming of Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promised salvation.

A strange king, the king we worship, the king whose coming we soon celebrate, the king whose first cradle was a feed trough.

The king wore no crown of precious metals and jewels, but  crown of thorns. He sat on no gilded throne, but was nailed to the throne of the cross. That unkingly ascension transformed all of history – divided it into before and after, made possible the transformation of our lives from slaves to sin, lost, condemned – to children of God, free to serve God and serve our neighbor, subjects in a kingdom of grace and love.

Because Jesus chose to wear a thorny crown and not a kingly crown, it tells us not only about Jesus the king, but about God. Because we have come to know God in Jesus suffering, death, and resurrection, this is what we know about God:

  • God loves us. Period. Doesn’t depend on how we feel or on the strength of our faith. It doesn’t depend on what we do or who we are. We aren’t excluded because of what we’ve done or who we aren’t. God loves us. Period.
  • God is with us. Yes, God is with us in the joys, the pleasures, the successes. That’s not hard to believe. What’s harder to believe is that God can also be with us, even bringing us blessing in the times of our grief, our pain, our suffering. God has come to us. God has chosen to meet us in the messes of our lives, the tragedies that come along, the disappointments, the failures, the broken relationships.
  • God is even now bringing all things to the fulfillment of God’s purposes. Through Christ the servant king, all the contingencies of human history are moving along toward the fulfillment of what God intends to accomplish.

O King of all nations and keystone of the Church:
come and save man, whom you formed from the dust!

O Radiant Dawn — December 21

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Since the 8th century, during the last seven days of Advent, leading to the Christmas celebration, the Christian Church has been singing a set of antiphons that were written as introductory prayers for the singing of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer. They are popularly known as “The O Antiphons” and serve as the basis for the well-known hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Each day uses a name for the coming Messiah drawn from the messianic hopes of the First Testament. They proclaim the coming of Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promised salvation.

I’m a morning person. It’s my best time of the day. I live in the woods and in these short days and long nights here in the north, I get up in the dark. I make a cup of coffee and go to my desk, surrounded by windows and sit in the quiet. It’s my prayer time, my quiet time, my thinking time. And it’s also a time to watch the day gradually dawn.

The day doesn’t explode into light. It’s a gradual transition from darkness to light. Even though the weather app on my phone tells me the precise time of the sunrise, in actual experience, there’s not a precise time when I say, “ok, the night is gone and the day is here.” Gradually the light overtakes the darkness and almost imperceptibly, the day is here.

During these days of advent, we have stood with the prophets who waited patiently for the coming of the Morningstar, the One which today’s O Antiphon calls the Radiant Dawn.

In the darknesses of my own life, the Light has come. Often slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, but always relentlessly, irrepressibly, the light comes. Into the dark corners of my heart, my life, and into the dark corners of a fear-ridden world, the Light comes.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

O Radiant Dawn,
splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:
come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the
shadow of death.

O Key of David — December 20

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Since the 8th century, during the last seven days of Advent, leading to the Christmas celebration, the Christian Church has been singing a set of antiphons that were written as introductory prayers for the singing of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer. They are popularly known as “The O Antiphons” and serve as the basis for the well-known hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Each day uses a name for the coming Messiah drawn from the messianic hopes of the First Testament. They proclaim the coming of Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promised salvation.

In Charles Dickens’ novel, Great Expectations, there’s a scene in which Barrister Jaggers’ clerk, John Wemmick, walks through a London prison. “Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener walked among his plants.” Wemmick was highly popular among the prisoners, personally recognized each of Mr. Jaggers’ clients. Wemmick inquired about each of them, taking note of their condition since his last visit.  But it was clear that he was not there to bring them the deliverance the prisoners were hoping for. When a prisoner might ask for something that Wemmick could not deliver, his reply was, “It’s no use, my boy; I’m only a subordinate. . .don’t go on that way with a subordinate.” At the end of the scene Pip and the clerk come to the end of their walk through the jail, they come to a man known only as the Colonel; the Colonel speculates that he’ll be out of jail by Monday. As they leave the jail, Wemmick instead reports that the Colonel is to be executed on Monday.

The Key of David is no subordinate. Indeed he cares about those locked in their deathly prisons, those of us — all of us — sentenced for our rebellion. The One whose birth is near, was born to die and in his death and resurrection he has opened the prison doors, set the prisoners free, and invited all into Life and Freedom.

O Key of David,
opening the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom:
come and free the prisoners of darkness!

O Leader of Israel — December 18

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Since the 8th century, during the last seven days of Advent, leading to the Christmas celebration, the Christian Church has been singing a set of antiphons that were written as introductory prayers for the singing of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer. They are popularly known as “The O Antiphons” and serve as the basis for the well-known hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Each day uses a name for the coming Messiah drawn from the messianic hopes of the First Testament. They proclaim the coming of Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promised salvation.

In the O Antiphon for December 18, Christ is called the Leader of the House of Israel.

Call to mind the great leaders of the nation of Israel: Moses, who let God’s people out of slavery, through the long wilderness wandering, and into the promised land. Deborah, the prophetess who masterminded the assault against Jabin, king of Canaan and his military commander Sisera. David, the great warrior king who got his start as a young shepherd boy who slew the giant. Esther, the Jewish queen of Persian who foiled the plans of Haman to have all the Jews in the land killed.

The Messiah was to be the great leader of God’s people all rolled into one. “He will lead his flock like a shepherd,” Isaiah proclaimed.

The shepherd who himself was led to slaughter. The shepherd who became the Lamb. The shepherd who was stripped, beaten, crowned with thorns, and led outside the gates of Jerusalem to the place of the skull where in his mighty cruciform power he rescued all creation.

O Leader of the House of Israel,
giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai:
come to rescue us with your mighty power!

O Wisdom — December 17

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Since the 8th century, during the last seven days of Advent, leading to the Christmas celebration, the Christian Church has been singing a set of antiphons that were written as introductory prayers for the singing of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer. They are popularly known as “The O Antiphons” and serve as the basis for the well-known hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Each day uses a name for the coming Messiah drawn from the messianic hopes of the First Testament. They proclaim the coming of Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promised salvation.

They say that wisdom comes with age and experience. I wonder.

While I hope that my blunders are fewer and that have learned a few things along the way, I still manage to do some things that in hindsight are pretty dumb. And with age and experience comes the possibility (the probability?) of making mistakes that are more costly, both economically and relationally, and have deeper lasting consequences.

In the O Antiphon for December 17, Christ is called the Wisdom from on high, the one who brings divine knowledge.

Throughout the gospel of John, the gospel writer is nearly obsessed with the theme of Christ as the one who has come so that we might know God. Except contrary to the way western theology has typically been ordered, the truth about God that Christ came to bring is not propositional truth; it is relational truth. God comes to us, dwells with us, takes up residence with us, hangs out with us, so that we might know God in God’s unimaginable, never-ending, limitless love.

Certainly there is a certain practical, utilitarian wisdom that smooths the skids of daily life; it may or may not come with age and experience. The greater Wisdom comes to bring life; that wisdom is rooted not in facts and figures or the school of hard knocks, but in divine love, Love Incarnate. Only when we acknowledge that we cannot know God — and therefore, cannot know real Life — except by God’s grace, God’s invitation, and God’s enlightenment, do we begin to know true wisdom.