It is said that the human heart is made for worship, and that we do not get to choose whether or not we worship, only who or what we worship. Here, in the second of the O antiphons, we see this idea expressed in ancient poetry, which has travelled with the Church since at least the 8th century. The antiphon is this:
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.
Adonai means “Lord”. Lord and Leader. The God who appeared to Moses and gave the law. Adonai is also the title which would be put instead of God’s name YHWH, which in Jewish tradition was too holy to be spoken, meaning that this poem links Jesus, the Messiah, very closely with the identity of YHWH, The LORD God, The Name, the One God…
The law was given after God had led the people out of captivity in Egypt. Out into the wilderness, to the mountain of Sinai. There the people were set apart and trained in how to be God’s people on that long journey around and through the desert. The Exodus continued to be celebrated and was the feast that Christ and the disciples were celebrating on that night when Jesus took bread, broke it and carved out a new covenant for those who would follow him. There is a past meaning of this little antiphon – something happened in history which the Messiah was meant to somehow complete, and Jesus did: He led, he revealed God, he explained the law and without ever abolishing the old, gave new meaning to it: Love one another! He redeemed us and did so with both arms outstretched on the cross.
But there is more to come. There is a future meaning to this little poem too, a sense in which everything is not yet complete. We are waiting for the return of our King, a time when “every knee will bow, and every tongue confess” – a time of seeing face-to-face and eye-to-eye. A time when we will be redeemed fully and finally when the outstretched arm of the Messiah holds the sceptre, and everything is finally in sync with the rule of Messiah Jesus.
You will by now not be surprised that I say that there is an Advent in between, a coming of Christ which takes place here and now, in between the past and the present. A coming in which Jesus takes on more and more of that role in our lives, yours and mine. Jesus leads, we follow. Jesus is the revelation of God and take our sandals off and worship him. Jesus gives the law of love in the two commandments: ‘Love God with all you’ve got and your neighbour as yourself’, and we are set apart in the following of that commandment as he himself helps us to do so.
And somehow, I think the key to this little antiphon is this: To the degree that Jesus is Lord, to the degree that our worship flows to the right person instead of the wrong things, to the degree that we are formed by our practice of continuing to try to learn to love the way he loves, to that degree we are redeemed and liberated.
It is only when we worship rightly that we are free. It’s easy to think that freedom is being our own masters, but most of us, if we think about it, have tried something like that, and there is always something else which sneaks in there to take the place that only One can rightfully hold, and then we end up with counterfeit freedom and fake, empty glory and more slavery and snares. If instead, we could “order our loves” and allow Jesus to come as Adonai, as Lord, then we would be truly free.
O Adonai…. Come and redeem us…