Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: The Seven O Antiphons

Today’s sermon will be covering the seven O antiphons. There’s a handout in your order of worship that has them. At the beginning, however, to get us started on them, we’re going to read from Isaiah chapter 11. So Isaiah 11, verses 1-10, please stand for the proclamation of the good news, the ascension of the Savior, king to the throne, the coming of Jesus. Isaiah 11, verses 1 to 10.

There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord, and he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes, nor decide by the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins, and faithfulness the belt of his waist. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze. Their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.

They shall not hurt, nor destroy, in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner to the people for the Gentiles shall seek him and his resting place shall be glorious.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this wondrous day. We thank you for the celebration of the coming, the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you for every Lord’s day in which he comes to be with us through his spirit and word and through the sacraments. We pray now for this day, Lord God, that our joy in this season might be enhanced by your scriptures and by a fuller understanding of who this is that we celebrate the birth of today and tomorrow. In Jesus’ name we ask this and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

Please be seated.

I told my wife this morning that it’s always difficult for me. Maybe not for many, but for me it always seems difficult preaching a Christmas sermon because the season is so wonderful and so joyous. I know it’s hectic. I know there’s a lot of things to get done, and the older you get, the less you remember what you should be getting done and the more the time seems to run out before it hardly starts.

But it’s a wonderful season of sharing, the inner penetration of one another with our lives. We’re thinking about each other a lot more. What will make our loved ones happy with gifts, and then we receive their gift as well. And so there’s a sense of wonderful joyous community. There’s the ineffable wonder and joy and delight of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it’s just very difficult, you know, to get up here and hopefully enhance your joy a bit.

But that’s my intent. That’s my calling today from God to preach on this subject that is so wonderful and glorious all on its own. So I’ll try not to get in the way too much of this wonderful season.

The cover of your order of worship—Angie was nice enough to print out a colored picture of women singing. You had black and white, but there are some women singing there. There are eight of them. And they are representations of the seven O antiphons, which we’ll talk about in just a minute.

Now, there are eight women because the O antiphons—O just means O Wisdom, O Lord, O Dayspring from on high. Oh, so there are seven of these O’s that describe various titles of the Lord Jesus Christ from the Old Testament, primarily from Isaiah and other texts as well. And these O antiphons have been used in the church since probably at least the fifth century, maybe earlier. And since the ninth century, they were used in conjunction with “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

That song that probably is the best known most loved Advent hymn in preparation for the celebration of Christmas is really quite ancient and was written specifically with seven verses to match the seven O antiphons. And so when we sing that for the last couple of weeks as we have with those seven verses, that’s why we’re using those seven verses and that particular order. That’s the original way it was ordered to match up with these seven O antiphons.

But why eight women? Well, an antiphon is a responsive reading with responses from the people back and forth on these seven antiphons. But they’d be connected to the recitation of the Magnificat—Mary’s tremendous song that we just read responsively and we know a chant version of it—but that wonderful song of Mary about what the Lord has accomplished in Jesus was always connected to the seven O antiphons. So the eight women, the seven antiphons, and then the song of Mary being chanted as well.

And then beneath that on your cover are some symbols that I don’t know where they came from, but I found them on the internet. I thought that’s kind of interesting. I hope the all-seeing eye doesn’t throw you off too much on that. I think that’s on there. But these are just seven symbols representing the seven antiphons.

I actually—one of the many things that I forgot this year, this last week, I forgot several important things. I had a friend who I stayed with many years ago who was in his 60s, a retired judge, and he said the only problem with getting older is you got to keep a little notepad with you at all times. Jot things down. I found that to be true. Last year I was going to actually preach a seven-sermon series on the seven O antiphons leading up to Christmas, and I remembered that about two weeks ago. So I thought well, at least we can go over the seven in one sermon on Christmas Eve celebration of Christ’s birth. And that’s what we’re going to do.

So you know, I haven’t seen the movie, but there’s this trailer for this movie about a race car driver praying to baby Jesus, and his wife says, “Well, you know, Jesus is all grown up.” And he says, “Well, I like baby Jesus best.” You know, so it goes. It’s kind of a funny line, but that’s really sort of, you know, not to diminish the joy of the season, but frequently this is why people have an easy time celebrating Christmas. There is this ineffable wonder of Jesus coming as an infant.

But when we read, as we just read, that in addition to coming in that wonderful way, this one who is the rod of Jesse and the shoot from Jesse—the root of Jesse rather—also comes to strike the earth with a rod and Mary’s Magnificat to take certain people down and exalt other people, well, then it’s not so easy maybe to be quite so glib about the whole thing. And so I thought it’d be good to focus on these seven names of Jesus taken from the Old Testament in the context of today’s sermon.

And as I said, most of them are taken from the book of Isaiah and many right here from Isaiah 11, the text that we just read. So these words—one other thing about these. At the bottom of the handout, these were of course originally written in Latin. And so instead of “O Wisdom,” there is “O Sapientia,” which is translated, means Wisdom. And if you take the first letter of those seven Latin titles of Jesus and read them backwards—okay, so start with the last one and then spell it out going up to the first one—they spell out “Ero Cras,” which means “tomorrow I will come” or “tomorrow he will come.”

And most people—we have no records of course, but most people think this is very deliberate on the part of the early church. These sorts of literary devices were not unknown at all. And so it’s kind of like a countdown: 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If you read it back upwards 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, you get this great message that the antiphons are a description of the one who will come, and “tomorrow he shall come.” And so the celebration of Christmas is the celebration of the one who has come and indeed he is the one whose titles here are given to us in this document that the historic church has used for a long time.

One other thing before we begin individually talking about them: one of the things that these seven antiphons do is they recapitulate Old Testament history in totality. I mentioned before, I think, that in Matthew’s five sermons of Christ recorded, it seems like it does the same thing. It recapitulates Old Testament history. The seven letters to the seven churches really track right through Old Testament covenant history. There are specific citations in each one of those to something that happened. So in Ephesus, it’s you know, the first love. And the next letter to the next church, there’s manna being eaten in the wilderness. And so you have this tracking of Old Testament history as well.

And so these seven antiphons do the same thing. The first two—wisdom refers to the creation, and then Adonai, the one who gives the law at Sinai’s height. This refers of course to Exodus, the giving of the law at Mount Sinai recorded in the book of Exodus. So those two are, you know, Genesis, Exodus, they’re Pentateuchal references to who Jesus is. He’s the wisdom of God and he’s the lawgiver and judge of people.

The next two are Davidic titles. The Radix Jesse—the root of Jesse—and Clavis David—the key of David. A clevis pin, I suppose you could think of as a key holding something together. And so he’s the root rather of a root of Jesse, and he’s also related to David. The key of David is what the scriptures describe him as. And those are obviously related to David and relate to the kingdom period of Old Testament history.

And then the next two: Jesus is the bright shining of the sun, and Jesus is the desire of the nations—or king of the nations, I suppose, is the more accurate translation. King of the nations. This refers to the empiric period, the period of empire, the period of when the tribes of Israel, the kingdom goes into captivity, and the times of the prophets very directly.

So we move, and then the last—Emmanuel—is a reference in Isaiah, but it kind of sums up the whole thing. Jesus comes to be with us. He is God with us, as we’re told in the Gospel of Matthew. And he is the summation of tribal period, kingdom period, and empire period. He’s the summation of the Pentateuch, and then the historic books, and then the prophetic books of the Old Testament.

And so what we celebrate using the seven antiphons is the coming of the one who is the summation of history. And Emmanuel comes as the great climax of all of that. All these things really were references to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the seven antiphons are a reminder of that, and they can be thought of that way.

You know, we can’t remember seven things in a row. Well, we can remember a telephone number if it’s three digits and four, right? You don’t remember seven digits. You remember three, the first three of your telephone number, then the last four. Well, if you break up the seven into two, two, two, and one, and remember the historical makeup, then it helps to remember what they’re trying to tell us about the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the beginning and end of history. He’s the fulfillment of it all.

So let’s go through these seven antiphons individually now and see if they can help inform our joy and celebration of Christmas, and if they can go with us into the new year to remember that the one we celebrate is the one who is really talked about in all of these ways. The historic church can inform our celebration and call us to a greater understanding.

One other thing about these O antiphons: they’re also sometimes referred to as the greater antiphons or the major antiphons. And these nights, the seven nights leading up to Christmas at which they’d be chanted along with the Magnificat, were known as the golden nights. This meditation on the Lord Jesus Christ and his coming.

One other thing I wanted to mention also before we leave this understanding that there’s a movement of history is that this is a reminder to us—as if we needed one—that the movement from the tribal period to the monarchial to the kingdom and then to the empire is not a bad thing. In some circles we seem to have taken the case laws which were given to us in the tribal period and said that’s really the golden age of the church, and the kingdom and empire are not such good things. Well, we know that’s not true.

So centralization and a movement away from the tribal understanding of things, and a layering in of a kingdom period, then an empire period—that’s not in and of itself bad. It’s bad if we do that apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus is the summation of the tribal period, the kingdom period, and the empire period of the Old Testament. And so, you know, immediately these seven O antiphons help us to remember or the obvious fact that the inspired history of who we are as a people moves in terms of centralization. We move from a garden to a city, and these things remind us about that.

All right. First, then, the first title is O Wisdom—Sapientia. “O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly, come teach us the way of understanding”—or some translations would say “teach us the way of prudence.”

Now in Isaiah 11:2, we just read that the spirit of the Lord may rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus the spirit of God was seen descending upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and Isaiah tells us that is the spirit of wisdom.

Now in this particular O antiphon what’s being described of course is the creation of the world. “O Wisdom who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily.” Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. He is the creation, the creator, the active agent of God in the context of creation.

In Proverbs 8, we see a reference to wisdom, of course, throughout the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 8:6: “Listen, I will speak of excellent things, and from the opening of my lips will come right things.” And ultimately, this is the Lord Jesus Christ, and I suppose his church, who speak forth the wisdom of God. He is the word of God. Jesus is the word.

In later in chapter 8 in Proverbs, we read this: “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way. Before his works of old, I’ve been established from everlasting. From the beginning, before there ever was an earth, when there was no depths, I was brought forth. When there was no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth. While as yet he had not made the earth or the fields or the primal dust of the world.

When he prepared the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit so that its waters would not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him as a master craftsman. I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in his inhabited world. My delight was with the sons of men.

Now therefore listen to me my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise and do not disdain it.”

Ultimately this is speaking of Jesus Christ, the creator of the world who existed before creation. And then I suppose also we can see wisdom being described as an attribute of Christ that is described here in terms of being a master craftsman. Jesus is the creator of all things.

And when we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, we may not, we must not think that this is his beginning. He has no beginning. He is the eternally begotten or brought forth one from the Father. He is the active agent of creation. And Proverbs makes that quite clear.

In chapter nine of Proverbs: “Wisdom has built her house. She has hewn out her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her meat. She has mixed her wine. She has also furnished her table. She has sent out her maidens. She cries out from the highest places of the city. ‘Whoever is simple, let him turn in here.’”

That’s the Lord Jesus Christ described as the acts of creation that he accomplished for us.

Now, this wisdom is referred to in the New Testament in Matthew 12:42. We read that the queen of the south will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it. She came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And indeed, a greater than Solomon is here. This is the Lord Jesus Christ, the one on whom the spirit of wisdom descended, is described as the one who was the greater Solomon specifically in reference to the wisdom of Solomon.

John chapter 1 begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word is God.” Here the word is “logos.” He is the wisdom of God and the word of God that comes forth from the mouth of God. Jesus Christ is wisdom incarnate.

And as we celebrate his birth, we celebrate the creator of the world and the recreator of the world in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there’s something incredible about that. Think of the creation. Think of the physical universe that’s around us. Think of Jesus creating everything here. It goes on apparently on and on and on and on. There’s no end. Well, there must be an end to the created order, but we can’t see it. And as we consider the stars, the heavens, or the microcosm of an individual atom and the things that incredible minute particles that inhabit it. Every bit of this was the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now that’s the wisdom of God. But the wisdom of God is also what we celebrate in the recreation of all things through the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we think of baby Jesus properly at this time of the year—I think Katherine Erland sang that song about Mary touching the face of God. Jesus came, the second person of the Trinity, became incarnate in human flesh, was born as a child, and Mary held God the Son in her arms and touched his face.

Now, that’s a different sort of wisdom, isn’t it? I mean, it’s the same both considerations of the first creation and then the recreation of all things through the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. These are subjects way too high for us. But they’re not subjects so high that we cannot marvel at them. The incredibleness of the created universe. And then the incredible wisdom of God, the knowledge of God, his ineffable ways shown through the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as a baby to bring about a brand new world in a new creation. From the vastness of the heavens to the smallness of a human child, we see the wisdom of God.

God calls us to have that wisdom. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said this: “We have the mind of Christ. We have the wisdom of God. We are the ones now. We are in a sense wisdom in Proverbs 8:9, who’s feminine, the church, the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re to be master craftsmen and work in the context of that incredible wisdom. And what has the world done in the 2,000 years since the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Sapientia—wisdom—why, it has moved in incredible ways. In our lifetimes, for instance, think of the growth of wisdom and knowledge of things that are just incredible that we have now done through the power of the wisdom that came and recreated the world. The knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the coming of wisdom. The wisdom that creates all things in the beginning with its vastness and recreates the world through the coming of a tiny child.

The second title is O Lord and Ruler—Adonai. “O Lord and Ruler of the house of Israel who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush, gave him the law on Sinai, come and redeem us without outstretched arm.”

As much as we can be taken away with a contemplation of the vastness and the ineffable wisdom of God in the creation and the coming of a small child and then the way he enables the human race—Christians who bear the name of the anointed ones—to be master craftsmen in their vocations to bring forth with wisdom the great produce of the world that we have accomplished, mankind has since the coming of Jesus.

As much as we can, you know, think of that in incredible ways. It is tied immediately to the idea that there is a law given. Jesus Christ is not just wisdom. His wisdom is in the law that he gives us to order and govern our lives.

I’ve been teaching Deuteronomy the last couple of weeks to one of the Sunday school classes. And what do we read in Deuteronomy chapter 4? We read that this is our wisdom in the sight of the nations. These statutes and judgments, the laws. Jesus Christ comes and he is not apart from, in opposition to, not grace opposed to law. He is Adonai. He is the lawgiver, the king and sovereign who comes in the book of Matthew is driven into Egypt. And God says, “Out of Egypt I will call my son.”

And when Jesus comes back, we begin then the account in the book of Matthew. What does he do as Moses leading his people back into the promised land? He goes on the mountain and he gives the Sermon on the Mount, a recitation, a sermon on the law of God. And once more, Jesus is portrayed to us as not just the wisdom of God, but the law of God, the lawgiver, the king and the sovereign.

Jesus Christ is our wisdom. He must be the one that we rely upon in all that we do and say in the context of our work. We ask for more wisdom to create more beautiful things as master craftsmen under him. We marvel at him and worship him because he is the wisdom of all the creation and the wisdom of the small child.

But Jesus also is our lawgiver, and that wisdom’s context is in the right ordering of our lives according to the law of God. The early church was theonomic and understood that the church of Jesus Christ worshiped at Christmas time the coming of the lawgiver, who didn’t put himself in opposition to Moses but identified himself as the greater Moses in the book of Matthew. And once more brought forth his law to his people.

Once more we are to say as the old church did that the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver. The Lord is our king. He will save us.

Clearly, we have in Adonai the reference to Exodus 20 and the giving of the law on the mount and beyond that the giving of the law of the Lord Jesus Christ to the servant on the mount in Matthew as well. And Jesus says that if you love me, you will what? You will keep my commandments. You’ll be a wise and discerning people. You’ll keep my commandments, and those very commandments that you keep will be your wisdom in the sight of the nations.

So wisdom and law are the two first titles in the antiphons.

The third is the beginning of the section on David. “O Root of Jesse, O Root of Jesse, who stands for an ensign or banner of the people before whom kings shall keep silence and unto whom the gentiles shall make supplication, come to deliver us and tarry not.”

Now when I read Isaiah 11, verses 1-2, in verse one it says there shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse. Well, who was Jesse? Jesse was David’s father. And we’re given the genealogy. In the book of Ruth, they have a child, and then comes Jesse from that child, and then comes David. And so we have David’s father referred to here. And the rod that will come forth out of Jesse, of course, the blooming of the flower will be David. But then beyond that, it’s the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in Isaiah 11, you know, obviously coming after David, the rod comes forth from the stem of Jesse. A branch will go out of his roots. This spirit of the Lord will be upon him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, you’ll have judgment. So, we have wisdom, the judgments, and all of this tied to the rod that’s going to come forth from the lineage of David.

But I continued to read down to the latter part of this section. In the latter part of the section, we read in verse 10 that in that day there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner to the people. So, which is it? Is he a rod of Jesse or is he the root of Jesse? Well, in the Bible in Isaiah 11, it tells us that he is both. He is both the root and the fruit of Jesse, before and after him, so to speak.

In Revelation 22:16, Jesus says, “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things to the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star.” The root and the offspring of David.

What does it mean? It means that Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end. He is the beginning of history. He’s the beginning of Jesse and David, but he is also the culmination of that history. The Lord Jesus Christ is wisdom and law to us. He orders our lives. And he also tells us now that any understanding we have of human history must find itself based upon what we celebrate now. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the coming of the root and the fruit, the root and the rod, or offspring of Jesse, the greater David is being described here.

Jesus Christ is the meaning of history, the beginning and the end of a thing. He didn’t come just as the result of Jesse. He was prior to Jesse as well. Now, we know that from the idea of creation, but it’s important that we understand that as Jesus talks to the churches, he tells them and he tells us, remember, I am your understanding of history. You cannot understand anything, any movement of history correctly apart from me. I am the meaning of every bit of your history as well.

Jesus is the root of your celebrations tonight and tomorrow. And he is the fruit of that celebration as well. Increase glory to him.

Now Jesus declares he is the meaning of history. But then he declares in the next O antiphon that his early church used that he does things in this history. He doesn’t just begin it and end it. He’s not just the meaning of it, but he’s active in the context of that history.

The next title is Clavis David—”O Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens. Come and bring forth the captive from his prison, he who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death.”

Jesus is the key of David. He is not just the meaning of history. He is actively involved in shutting and opening. He’s involved as the key of David doing things in the context of history.

And if we understand the reference here to the key of David, it goes back to Isaiah. Isaiah in a time where there was a bad steward—in Isaiah there was this steward named Shebna in the time of Hezekiah. And Shebna instead of building Hezekiah’s house and God’s house decided to build his own house real big. And he was an improper steward. He was replaced by Hilkiah.

And God told Hezekiah and he told Hezekiah, and he tells us in the book of Isaiah that this is what happened. That he comes to Shebna and says I’m going to wad you up as a ball and throw you away, and Hilkiah—I’m going to give you that key that was on the literally probably on the shoulder of Shebna. He had the key to the various storehouses and stuff. He kept the keys of Hezekiah’s palace and the temple. And instead of him now having the key, Hilkiah was going to replace him.

Jesus intervened in history to give his key, which Shebna was using improperly to build his own house, to give that key to Hilkiah because Hilkiah was a man who loved God and wanted to serve him and his house.

Now that’s what the key of David originally was referring to here. That is the key of David. Jesus in the book of Revelation tells one of the churches in the book of Revelation that he is the key of David, and he says the same thing. “Who opens and no man shuts. And who shuts and no man can open.” And he says this explicitly in the context of establishing the church that was being persecuted by the Jews. And he then says that I will cause those who are the synagogue of Satan to come and worship at your feet.

I’m going to bless you. I have transferred the key of the kingdom from Shebna to Hilkiah. I’ve transferred the key of the church from the Jewish nation that’s rejected me, and I’ve established the church.

Now, Jesus is telling us and he’s not telling us that is a one-time occurrence. That’s an occurrence that happens throughout history. Build your house for yourself. Build your house ultimately to enlarge your borders instead of working for the Lord Jesus Christ. And you’ll find the key of David at work in your life. And when he shuts, you can’t open. And when he opens it to someone else, you can’t shut it to keep someone else away from taking your possession.

God stores up the possessions of the wicked for the righteous, and the key of David. Jesus’s wisdom and law are what we celebrate and what we submit to and what we thank God for. And his being the meaning of history and not just the meaning but actively involved in that history. Opening and closing doors, taking down rulers and establishing rulers, ultimately opening the door of mission to those that would reject them to bring them in through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the church.

This is what Radix Jesse and Clavis David—the root of Jesse and the key of David—refers to. Jesus comes and he will open and he will close.

The last two antiphons deal with the prophetic period. “O Radiant Dawn, O Oriens—like orient east, the sun rises in the east. O dawn splendor of eternal light and sun of justice, come and shine on those seated in darkness and in the shadow of death.”

And in Isaiah 9, we read, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.” In Malachi 4, “But to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings, and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves.”

Psalm 19 describes the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is like a bridegroom, like the sun comes out and it moves across the whole earth bringing light. Jesus Christ is the light. He’s the light that shone forth first in creation and who shines forth in that glorious singing of the angels in the middle of the night to the shepherds. The heavens are ablaze with the glory of God. Jesus Christ is the light of the world.

He comes to bring that light not just to the people who are waiting for him but rather to take that light to those who dwell in deep darkness. And Jesus Christ comes to bring light to the world. Jesus Christ comes as our light and our understanding, but he comes to bring us hope that the nations of the earth will come to the light of his rising.

And we’re called then—second Peter 1:19 says that we have the prophetic word confirmed which you do well to heed. It is a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawn and the morning star arise in your heart.

Jesus Christ in describing himself in Revelation as the root and the offspring of David goes on to say that he is the bright and morning star. He is the harbinger of dawn. And history now has meaning and purpose because that dawn has come, and with the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the morning star has come. The bright light starts to happen, and history now is demonstrated to be the coming of the light.

In Psalm 19, in moving its circuit around the entire world. Jesus Christ is the light of the world, and this light of the world is tied to him being the king of the Gentiles, Rex Gentium.

“O King of the Gentiles and their desired one, the cornerstone that makes both one, come and deliver man whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.”

Isaiah 9:7 says, “To the increase of his government and peace there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice. From that time forward, even forever more, the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall accomplish this.”

Isaiah 2:4 says, “He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

We are in the period when the desire of the nations has come. Haggai 2:7 says, “I will shake all nations and they shall come to the desire of all nations, and I will fill this temple with glory says the Lord of hosts.”

This fulfillment is talked about in the book of Matthew, chapter 4:15. “The land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles”—a phrase because Galilee was to the north. This was where the Lord Jesus Christ was going to begin his ministry because his ministry would penetrate to all nations.

When Jesus left Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea and the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘The land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.’”

And then in Zechariah’s song, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, he has visited and redeemed his people. He sings about the brightness of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and his reign over the nations. Verse 78, ‘Through the tender mercy of our God with which the dayspring from on high has visited us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’”

And in Luke’s gospel we read as well in chapter 2, verses 29-32. “Lord, now you’re letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. My eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all peoples. A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.”

This is Emmanuel. He comes as the meaning and as the active agent in human history. And the next two O antiphons—the rising of the sun and its sure course over the world and the coming of the king of the Gentiles, the desire of the nations—with all the prophetic words telling us, fills us with bright hope for the future.

We have hope based upon these two titles of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the bright and morning star, and he is the king of the Gentiles. Our history is not just have meaning and purpose bounded by Jesus. Not he’s not just interactive for our purposes. He’s interactive to the end that the whole world may come to the light of his rising.

Jesus is our wisdom and our law. He’s the right ordering of our lives, the preparation for our vocation. We worship him because of the ineffable creation of the first creation and the second creation and for his giving his law to us by which our order is, our lives are ordered and made sense of.

Jesus Christ is the purpose and meaning of history, and he is active in the context of history, opening and shutting, and no man can stay his hand.

And finally, Jesus gives us great hope for the future. Our vision is theocratic and it is postmillennial. It is confident knowing that as surely as the sun makes its orbit around the earth—and by the way of our seeing, at least in the same way—the Lord Jesus Christ will come to bring the light of the gospel to all nations. We don’t know how that works in our times, but we know for certain that for 2,000 years the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ has spread like light coming with the dawning of day.

And that our, as we look to the future, we look to a future in which all nations will come to the Lord Jesus Christ to Emmanuel, who is God with us.

The final O antiphon: “O Emmanuel, God with us, our king and lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their savior, come to save us, O Lord our God.”

Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel”—repeated in Isaiah chapter 9 and of course fulfilled then in Matthew 1:23. “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated, God with us.”

This was the message to Joseph. She will bring forth a son. You shall call his name Jesus. He will save his people from their sins. And he will be Emmanuel, God with us.

What is “with us” is just an interesting hope that we have. Is it just kind of a neat celebration of light and gift-giving and songs and joy without understanding the fullness of Jesus? No, it’s not. Emmanuel, God with us. This is the God of all wisdom. The God who is our sovereign lawgiver and our judge. The God who is the meaning of history and its very purpose, its beginning and end. A God who is involved. Jesus is involved in opening and shutting doors in the context of the church and of nations. And Jesus comes surely, as surely as the sun comes across our horizon, so surely the Lord Jesus Christ is bringing the light of his gospel to the nations.

This is Emmanuel. This is the one whom we celebrate at Christmas time. This is the one whose worship we give forth to God.

Now indeed, “Ero Cras”—”tomorrow I will come.” And so the church always concluded this wonderful description of the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who it was that was born in that manger 2,000 years ago. They conclude with the reading of the Magnificat, which we’ll do now.

“My soul doth magnify the Lord. My spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior, for he hath regarded the lowest state of his handmaid. For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty has done to me great things. Holy is his name.

His mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

Jesus Christ is our wisdom. Jesus is our lawgiver and judge. Jesus is our understanding and the meaning of history, and our understanding not just of the meaning but the process of history as well, using his key. Jesus is our light. Jesus is our hope. Jesus is God with us. And that was accomplished 2,000 years ago.

Let us pray. Father, we do rejoice before you for the creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our wisdom. We thank you, Father, for these many titles. All of them cannot contain the fullness of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in what we celebrate today and on into this week.

Bless us, Lord God, as we come forward. May our hearts be filled with worship and praise for the one who was born in the manger, but for the one who also spoke forth with wisdom the right ordering of the creation originally and has now recreated it through his second coming. We thank you, Lord God, for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that he is indeed our lawgiver and sovereign.

Help us, Father, this week to not be foolish and to not be lawless, but to be those who submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us not to be those, Father, who think that somehow you’re removed from our history, but help us to remember that Jesus is both the beginning and end of our history and Jesus is the process of it as well.

Help us, Lord God, not to dwell in darkness as much as we might like it because of our sins. Shine forth, break us forth out of those sins, and assure us, Lord God, that we can look forward to the future with bright hope because Jesus Christ is indeed the desire of the nations, the king of the Gentiles. Jesus Christ is all these things as Emmanuel, God with us, our savior.

In his name we pray. Amen.