What is the most important object in your daily life – the one
thing you couldn’t do without? For me it would be a toss-up between my
diary and my keys! Without my diary I certainly wouldn’t remember what
I was supposed to be doing for much of the time, and that would make my
life very difficult indeed. But on balance I think I would choose my
keys. Without out them I couldn’t get in to my house, couldn’t drive my
car, and couldn’t access either of our churches. In short, normal life
would be well nigh impossible! The more you think about it keys are an
essential element in all our lives.
The main function of a key is to open up places which would be
otherwise closed to us – to let us in, to give us access. On the other
hand a key could also let us out if we were shut up in a locked room or
in a prison cell!
At Evening Prayer in the days leading up to Christmas the western
Church traditionally uses some special antiphons (or refrains) which
are said or sung at the beginning and at the end of the Magnificat (the
Song of Mary). These are often called the ‘Great O Antiphons’ because
they all begin with the word ‘O’. Each of them takes a phrase from the
Old Testament and applies it to the Christ whose coming into the world
we are about to celebrate. The office of Evening Prayer in the recently
published Church in Wales ‘Daily Prayer’ has now made these antiphons
part of the official liturgy of our church in Advent.
One of the most memorable of these antiphons is the one set for 20th
December: ‘O Key
of David, Sceptre of the house of Israel, what you close none shall
open, what you open none shall close: Come and lead forth from prison
those who lie in chains, who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death’.
This antiphon is based on a striking passage from the prophecy of
Isaiah: ‘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’.
(Is 22:22) This passage refers to a certain Eliakim, an official in the
royal household in Isaiah’s time, who it seems, is being promoted to a
position in which he will act with the authority of the king himself,
the successor to the great King David. Symbolically speaking, he will
have the keys to the kingdom.
But, the antiphon proclaims, for Christians it is the coming Christ who
will properly fulfils this prophecy. He is the one who will truly ‘have
the keys to the Kingdom’, who alone will open the doors to allow men
and women access to that Kingdom. Looking at it from the other angle,
it is only he who will open the doors to the prison cell of our sin and
darkness to lead us out into light and freedom.
So at Christmas we celebrate the coming of the ‘Key of David’. As we
worship the Christ Child let’s allow Him to unlock the doors of our
heart to let God’s light and joy in. Let’s allow him to open us up to
all the gifts of Love that He wishes to shower upon us. In the words of
the antiphon let our prayer be: ‘Come and lead forth
from prison those who lie in chains, who dwell in darkness and the
shadow of death’.
On behalf of all of us at the Rectory may I wish you all a very joyful
and blessed Christmas.
