The Great Os - not Honey Nut Loops

One of the great joys of Advent is remembering that move from the Jewish faith to the new faith of Jesus, and remembering just how different and shocking the new faith seemed to Jews, even to the Jewish followers of Jesus.

From the 16th December, a series of antiphons are sung, called "The Great Os."  They are all cries for God to come into our lives, but are all different ways of looking at God, and develop as we get nearer to Christmas.

The first ones, O Wisdom, O Adonai, O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Dayspring and O King of the Nations represent the older, Jewish, way of seeing God, referring to various attempts by Old Testament writers to make the enormity of God comprehensible to people.

The new Wisdom Window in the Chapel of St Catharine's College, Cambridge

'O Wisdom, which camest out of the mouth of the most High,

And reachest from one end to another, mightily, and sweetly ordering all things:

Come and teach us the way of prudence.'

The seventh, O Emmanuel, represents a seismic shift in our understanding of God.  Emmanuel means 'God is with us.'  Suddenly in Christ God ceases to be a far off concept.  God has come down to our level.  For the first time, human beings touch God, we hug him and kiss him, share food and drink with him.  

We are so used to the idea of God in human form that we forget how shocking this idea would have been to people.  In Exodus, God warns the Israelites that his presence would kill them outright, and Moses' face shines so that he has to wear a veil just from speaking with God.  Our nativity pictures should not make us go "Aaaah" so much as "Wow!"

A nativity scene from the Epiphany Chapel in Winchester Cathedral.

Notice how serious the angels, Mary and Joseph look.  This isn't

a happy homely scene.  Mary's head is bowed in awe, and the king

on the right looks like his eyes are about to burst from their sockets.

"O Emmanuel, our King and Law-giver, the desire of all nations

and their salvation, come and save us, O Lord, our God."

The last antiphon rams this point home.  "O Virgin of Virgins, how shall this be? for neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after.  Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye after me?  The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery."  The mystery of the Incarnation is so mind-boggling that we simply can't process it, and will never understand it.

Hear ye people, even to the ends of the earth!  God is with us! Christ is born!

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, 

reaching from one end to the other, 

mightily and sweetly ordering all things: 

Come and teach us the way of prudence. 

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, 

who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush 

and gave him the law on Sinai: 

Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm. 

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples; 

before you kings will shut their mouths, 

to you the nations will make their prayer: 

Come and deliver us, and delay no longer. 

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; 

you open and no one can shut; 

you shut and no one can open: 

Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, 

those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

O Morning Star, 

splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness: 

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

O King of the nations, and their desire, 

the cornerstone making both one: 

Come and save the human race, 

which you fashioned from clay. 

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, 

the hope of the nations and their Saviour: 

Come and save us, O Lord our God. 

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? 

For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after. 

Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? 

The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery.

Banana and Walnut muffins for "O Wisdom"

 

 

Peace and Goodwill from Hilfield!

JB and the purpose of Advent

We had our community bible study on Thursday night, and although I was one of the people leading it this week, I was also cooking, and so was making a cheese sauce until a minute before we started.  Lesson one: always be prepared spiritually as well as practically for leading worship.  A few minutes of prayer (and possibly Psalm 115 as well) to offer what you are about to do up to God and to ask Him to work through you goes a million miles.

As it was, I didn't really know what to say.  And I am sure that everyone was a little bit narked with me by the end of it.  In any case, I had the real privilege of listening in on what everyone else was thinking.

The passage was Luke 3:7-18.  Fiery stuff, as John the Baptist interacts with a crowd who think that he is the messiah (Jesus has not yet begun his ministry).  The first thing I liked that was said was that we are like the crowd in that we demand immediate solutions from God.  They want something they can do now to gain salvation.  But John cannot satisfy them.  He is only the herald for the one who will bring salvation.  He knows they are not yet ready to hear Jesus' message and so beings to prepare the ground for the Good News which will shortly follow.

An icon of John the Baptist

Christ is in a green mandorla, showing that he is hidden from us as his 

ministry has not yet begun.  John is gesturing towards him, 

trying to get people to prepare themselves for Christ and to actively wait for him.

He warns them not to rest on their laurels.  Just because they are Jewish does not mean they will enter the kingdom of God.  Rather, they must change their attitude to the world and those around them.  Give your excess to those who have nothing; do not justify your behaviour by saying that everyone else behaves like that, but rather be prepared to meet God as an individual, in the terrifying nakedness of one who is truly known by God.

It is a message that requires remarkable courage to hear.  In Advent, Christians are called not to rest on their laurels, not to believe that just because they go to Church once in a while, or even all the time, they are ok with God.  We are called to re-evaluate our relationship with the world, our brothers and sisters, and our Father in heaven.  We are called to be prepared to stand naked before the God who knows us truly.  And we are called to remember that, actually, we are never standing anywhere else.

Treasure in Earthenware Jars

There is a passage in 2 Corinthians which reads:

'We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us.' (2 Corinthians 4:7)

Earthenware Jars in Pompeii

I have recently read a sermon by the RC Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, in which he uses that text to consider what it means to be a priest, and the analogy carries over into any Christian life.

The earthenware jar is something simple, into which something great is poured.  A priest is never the one who truly does work; rather it is God who does it through him or her.  The priest must therefore be humble, giving thanks to God for all that they achieve, and in all things pointing away from themselves to Christ.

The earthenware jar is also fragile.  We put priests on a pedestal so often, expecting them to be able to deal with any situation and also to live perfect lives, to always be firing on all cylinders when we need them.  In Archbishop Vincent's words, 'Ordination does not create supermen.  Our fragility remains.'  All Christians, but priests especially, are called daily to meet new situations, some of which will stretch them to their limit.  This is when we are driven back to God in prayer, when we must allow the master craftsman to reshape us and reform the cracks that the stresses of life have created.

In the end, 'it is always the treaure that matters, not the vessel.'  On Sunday, I heard a sermon from a priest in training at Westcott House, one of the C of E colleges in Cambridge.  All Christians are called to live a life for God, 'to do not what they want to do, but what God wants them to do.'  This is what the priestly vocation embodies so particularly.  A priest is sent out into the relatively unknown, with the one guiding principle of doing God's work.  In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, 'your will be done.'  Our lives should be the fulfilment of that prayer.  To carry and share the treasure that is so marvellously stored within us.

The font in Salisbury Cathedral

In baptism, God claims us as His own.  We may have already recognised that we have the weakness of an earthenware jar, but the Christian knows that he or she is filled with treasure as well.  The question then is what they will do with it.

"Missioners: priest and people today" by Archbishop Vincent Nichols is published by alive publishing.

Peace and goodwill from Hilfield.