The Seventh O Antiphon – O King of the Gentiles

O KING OF THE GENTILES and their desired One, Cornerstone that makes both one:

Come, and deliver us whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Some translations render this opening line as “King of Nations.”  While we could spend a lot of time on this differentiation, the spirit in the Antiphons is the same.  There is an understanding that the several titles for the Messiah that the Antiphons employ up to this point have tended to hold their significance for the Hebrews alone.  “King of Nations” (plural) or “King of the Gentiles” affirms the proclamation that the good news is for all people.

The prophets foretold such: For a child has been born for us, a son given us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  This is an oft-quoted word from  Isaiah 9:6.  He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.  This foretelling is also from Isaiah.  It is Chapter 2, verse 4.  Among the plenteous others is Isaiah 64:8: But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

The Antiphons individually and collectively are a rich source of worship material and grounds for seasonal reflection.  It has meant a great deal to me to plumb their depths even a little bit in this season.

The Sixth O Antiphon -- "O Dayspring"

O DAYSPRING, Brightness of the light eternal and Sun of Justice:

Come, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

This Antiphon incorporates several references to Jesus.  The Dayspring reference is from The Canticle of Zechariah in Luke 1.  Zechariah speaks of his son John who will be the “prophet of the most high” who will make ready for “the Dayspring,” or Jesus. 

There are multiple references in the gospels to Jesus as “the Light” or “Light,” most noticeably in John.  In chapter 1, vss. 3-5, the writer proclaims, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  

In Revelation 21 Jesus says, “It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

The Sun of Righteousness, or here rendered Sun of Justice, is part of the prophesy of Malachi 4: “See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.”

Light and its attributes demonstrate Jesus’ bringing clarity and accuracy of perception into the world.  It is difficult to see in the darkness.  But, when light is shed upon a thing, it is more clearly discerned.  And so, we hear the petition in the second line of the Antiphon:

Come, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

the Key of David

The O Antiphon for this week is:

    

      O KEY OF DAVID and Scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no one shuts, 

      who shuts and no one opens:

Come, and bring forth from prison the captive who sits in darkness

and in the shadow of death.

      Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

This is not the most familiar of references from the O Antiphons.  But the Old Testament has a lot of references to keys and what they represent.  It is simplicity itself at one level: one needs a key to attain something that is hidden or secured.  Likewise a key is frequently necessary to gain freedom from captivity.

Isaiah 22:22 reads: I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open.

In like manner, Isaiah says in chapter 42:7."...To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

In some ways, while not the most transparent of titles, it may be one of the best.  Christ releases the people of God from their bondage to sin and unlocks the treasures of heaven to a poverty-stricken Creation.

The Fourth O Antiphon

O ROOT OF JESSE, who stands for an ensign of the people, before whom kings shall keep silence and to whom the Gentiles shall make their supplication:

Come, and deliver us and tarry not.

      Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

  

The Israelites looked forward to the coming of a Messiah who would restore them to a time of peace and prosperity.  Their thoughts naturally drifted to the nations's glory days: the time of the rule of King David.  The Book of First Samuel chronicles the emergence of David as a national figure and then king, first of Judah for seven years, then of all Israel for a total of forty.  David ruled wisely (for the most part) slew the Philistine giant Goliath, fought the battles of Yahweh, and kept the nation together in the face of tremendous outside threats.  A people that had later lived under the crushing heel of the Syrians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, Greece and Rome longed for independence, peace and prosperity.  That was the understanding of most of the people who anticipated the coming of God's Messiah.

So intense was this desire that Israel even came to believe that the Messiah would be a part of David's family tree.  As David was a sprig off the root of his father Jesse, so must the Messiah have David's blood in his own veins.

Isaiah, Chapter 11, Verses 1–3 read:

And there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear;

In this season, we remember that the Infancy Narratives of Matthew and Luke have Jesus being born not simply in the “town of Bethlehem,” but in a population center known as “The city of David.”

It is not about wishful thinking; it is about hope.

The peace of the Lord be with you.

The O Antiphon for the Third Week of Advent

The O antiphon for the week is:

O ADONAI, and Leader of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flames of the bush and gave him the Law on Sinai:

Come, and with your outstretched arm redeem us.

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Adonai is an odd word for liturgical use, at least for Christians.  A form of it appears sparingly in the Hebrew Bible, but it is rare.  More common is the title for God’s use in Jewish liturgy.  As pronouncing the name YHWH (Yahweh?) came to be forbidden, substitutes were offered when the readings called for the word to be said aloud.  Adonai or less frequently HaShem ("The Name") were employed as replacements.

In modern Christian hymnody, the term Adonai is used along with a long list of Hebrew names and titles in the song El Shaddai, written by Michael J. Card & John W Thompson and popularized in the 1982 release by Amy Grant.

As the antiphon indicates, the title Adonai is associated with the stories of God’s liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and issuing the Covenant Law at Sinai.

The Second O Antiphon

The O Antiphon for the Second Week of Advent reads:

O WISDOM, who came forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end, and ordering all things mightily and sweetly

Come and teach us the way of prudence.

      Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Wisdom is not related to book-learning.  It is, biblically, an understanding of the way things work together, a comprehension of simple truths related to the way things are.  In Hebrew lore, Wisdom was personified before coming to dwell in the tents of the children of Abraham in the form of The Law.  Of all the requests that Solomon could have made when he ascended the throne of Israel, that for which he asked, and which pleased God the most, was the gift of wisdom.  That the Messiah is cast as wisdom fulfills the ancient hope of God’s people that this ancient, guiding force which has been withdrawn from  humankind for a season, might return as  an assurance of God’s re-establishment of Creation Order and the perfect will of God.

The O Antiphons

The O Antiphons were originally used by the church during the daily vesper services in the last seven days of Advent.  An antiphon is a short chorus or refrain the text of which comes from the Psalter.  These seven antiphons have come to be used in Advent services, particularly worship times other than the primary worship gatherings in Advent.  They are frequently part of Hanging of the Greens, Lessons and Carols and Candlelight services.  Each of the antiphons employs a different title for Christ.  The hymn/carol O Come, O Come Emmanuel is a paraphrase of the Antiphons.

Modern churches of many denominations employ the O Antiphons in a variety of ways in their worship services.  We are using them in our Calls to Worship.  This week’s O Antiphon is:

                                                                                                                                                          

O EMMANUEL, our King and Lawgiver, the Expected of the nations and their Savior:

Come and save us, O Lord our God.

      Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.