How are your Christmas preparations coming along? Are you looking forward to Christmas by now, or is it more a case of getting to the finish line? I am greatly looking forward to welcoming some young people into the chapel before Christmas for a Christingle service – and to the day itself, with a mix of church, friendly company and a bit of quiet, too. I hope your Christmas Day will be a lovely time for you, and that you may wind your way to somewhere where glad tidings will be proclaimed in word and song and a warm welcome awaits.
Today’s O Antiphon addresses the one-to-come as “Root of Jesse”.
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.
Perhaps you remember that slightly strange moment in the Gospel of Matthew (22:41-46) where Jesus asks question of the gathered Pharisees in a style that is very typical of how Jewish rabbis debate things: Is the Messiah the son of David or the Lord of David? Often in these sorts of questions, the answer is not A or B, one or the other, but rather “both, and now let me tell you why and how these things all fit together.” But rather than the Pharisees explaining, they seem to evade or be unsure of the question and then not ask him anymore…
Well, the Messiah is the Root of Jesse, in the sense that Jesus was from eternity past, he long precedes Jesse who was King David’s father, and also, he is far above him in rank and importance. But Jesus is also, so we Christians claim, the one who the prophet refers to when he says: “Then a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit.” (Isaiah 11:1) Not only is Jesus the Root, he is also the Branch, the Shoot – he is the Lord and the Son both at the same time. He was before King David, but he is also a descendant of this golden age king.
A key to how this can be is the incarnation – the becoming-flesh of God in the person of Jesus, who was both fully man, able to feel, cry, get tired, be in one place, have emotions, think deeply about ethical issues – even able to die; and fully God, holy, loving, divine, so identified with the glory and power of God that he had to choose to set it aside to be able to enter into one body, one life, in one place – he emptied himself, so we read in Philippians 2.
In Jesus, heaven meets earth. The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, just like that old tabernacle where people could go to meet with God in the desert – here is that meeting place, that point of connection that makes things move…
And in just a few days, we will celebrate and remember the one who makes the nations still, prayerful, silent. Be still and know that I am God (Ps 46:10). Stop your wars. Stop rattling your swords and hacking the infrastructure. Be quiet in awe, simply be, stop striving and know…
The plea here is deep and clear:
O Root of Jesse, come and deliver us and delay no longer!