Sermon preached at Evensong on the Fourth Sunday of Advent 2024

A few days of Advent remain. Our eyes turn, in the second lesson, to Mary; to the child she will bear, who is, we are told, of David’s line, the root of Jesse whom Isaiah foretold, and who will be called Emmanuel—God with us.

Our service began this evening with the words:

O King of the nations, and their Desire; the Cornerstone, who makest both one: come, and save humankind, whom thou formedst of clay.

This is the sixth  in a series of antiphons, which have marked and punctuated these final days before Christmas; focussing our attention on particular names or titles for Christ, drawn from the pages of prophesy; prayed over, sung over from generation to generation, making them gleam with meaning. These titles each give us a slightly different perspective on the question posed by the psalmist—Who is this King of glory; the one born in a manger, the one coming with the clouds?

The Abbey has been releasing, day by day, recordings of the antiphons sung in glorious plainchant by one of our Lay Vicars. I commend them to you as part of your devotions for these final days before Christmas.

But, if I may, I’d like to wind us back a couple of days, to consider the antiphons for the 20th and 21st of December, as well as for today, and ask the question, what might it mean to call Christ ‘Key of David’, ‘Radiant Dawn’ and ‘King of the nations.’

O Key of David, and sceptre of the house of Israel—we heard two days ago—you open, and no one shuts, you shut, and no one opens: come, and lead the captive from the prison; seated in darkness and in the shadow of death.

The theme of liberation is threaded through the antiphons, and finds particular expression here. Previous antiphons have called for our liberation from unreasonableness, from lawlessness, and from the tyranny of misrule. As Key of David, we call on Christ to liberate us from our deepest imprisonment; from the darkness of sin; from the shadow of death.

The title Key of David is drawn from Isaiah, from what at first glance seems like a strange setting for a Messianic title. It is coined in the midst of an excoriating attack on Shebna the Master of the Royal Household in Jerusalem, from whom, Isaiah assures him, the Key of David will be removed, with the subsequent promise that he will be deposed in favour of Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, to whom the Key of David will be given. So, this title seems to relate to those who have the authority to facilitate or prevent access to the King.

So, Christ, as Key of David, is not just King of kings, as we acclaim him elsewhere, but he is the one with the authority to grant us access to the throne-room of heaven. No-one else can open that door, and indeed no-one can shut it once he has opened it.

This has a distinctly paschal, an Easter feel to it. We might bring to mind those icons of the resurrection, where the risen Christ stands astride the broken gates of hell, hauling Adam and Eve out of the abyss by the wrist. Christ, by his dying and rising, breaks open the prison house of sin and death to release humankind from their alienation and darkness; hauled into life and light and into the great company of the redeemed.

Calling on Christ as Key of David reminds us that he is our ultimate liberator; the one who makes us mortal sinners into a royal priesthood in the Kingdom of his Father.

And yesterday we heard sung:

O Radiant Dawn, splendour of light eternal, and sun of justice, come, and shine on those, seated in darkness, and in the shadow of death.

Again, the theme of liberation from darkness and death is here, but Christ is not just the doorkeeper, the one with the key, but he is the dawning light that floods the prison-house with the light of true justice. There is a cross-reference here with one of the earlier antiphons—O Adonai, the mighty Lord and law-giver—Christ brings a law which cannot be obscured in the mist of interpretation, which cannot be denied to anyone, because it is the dawning light in which no injustice, no sin can be hidden.

Despite our sin, amazingly, God deems it just to redeem us; to forgive and to restore. This light does not dawn because we ask for it, least of all because we deserve it. This is the eternal light of grace; the splendour of the risen Christ on Easter morn; the one who speaks peace even to those who abandoned him to death.

This is the dawning of a light more original than any sun or star. We might remember the Transfiguration, when chosen disciples beheld the uncreated light shining in the face of Christ; when they discerned, his divine nature. This light uncovers our pale, however valiant efforts at justice. Just as Christ was revealed for who he is, so this light reveals the divine image in which we are all made, and which is the basis for all just dealing.

We call on Christ, as the rising sun, yet greater than any natural light, to dawn on us and liberate his people from all injustice.

And today, not quite finally, we call on him as King of the Nations and ‘lapisque angularis’, the Key or Corner stone.

O King of the nations, and their Desire; the Cornerstone, who makest both one: come, and save humankind, whom thou formedst of clay.

Here we call on Christ as the one who links together, like a keystone in a gothic arch, or the cornerstone that connects differently orientated walls; that holds, and relieves the tension between them. This architectural metaphor elaborates that idea of being built together into a living Temple, that we find in the letter to the Ephesians, where Paul writes:

you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.

Christ holds the building, the community of the Church, and ultimately the community of nations together—that is the kind of King he is. He is not a highly decorated finial, or a magnificent flying buttress, least of all a sky-piercing spire. He is integral, at the core of the structure, giving it integrity and stability; holding it together.

Calling on him as King of the nations, of all nations, we have to acknowledge that he cannot be exclusively claimed by any one of them. Just as no one of us is saved apart from the salvation of others, so it is with humanity as a whole. It is in our being joined together, by Christ, with Christ and in Christ; joined as a whole world of nations, with Russia, China, Iran, for all their threat and fury, it will be with them that we will be saved. Just listing those nations reminds us that the saving work of God in Christ, whilst accomplished in his dying and rising, is still to be fulfilled, consummated. So, we continue to call on the one, the only one, who seeks not the destruction of his enemies, but their building up, their building together into the mighty edifice of a redeemed humanity

These antiphons set the scene for Christmas; like a series of great organ chords, of the Messiaen variety; shifting our focus, surprising and awakening our ear, leading us to the final resolution—for the revealing of the child. The magnificent themes of the antiphons—wisdom, and law, and liberation, and light condense into startling fragility; as if to remind us to look down as well as up. To find the King of Glory already with us, already Emmanuel, in the most humble and intimate and glorious way.

Even so; Amen. Come Lord Jesus.