The O Antiphons (Dec 17-23)

 

The “O” Antiphons 

I remember the first time I heard the carol “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”  I was 8 or 9.  I remember thinking that it was a very ancient song, with old, old feelings and sounds.  It sounded very “Old Testament,” and that marked it as ancient for me.  I was surprised as a teenager to learn that the English hymn we sang was from the mid-1800s.  And though it had originally been written in Latin, it was not all that ancient—probably first published in its Latin present form in the 1500s.

 

But the fact is, the hymn itself is a poem drawn from a series of very ancient liturgical texts, from as early as the 6^th century.  

 

In monastic daily prayer, Psalm and Canticle texts were often given “headers” and “footers” to set them apart, ornament them, sum up their ideas, and make the chanting seem not so monotonous.  These lead-ins and codas are called antiphons.   In the seven days leading up to Christmas, the normal daily evening singing of the Blessed Virgin’s Canticle of Praise The Magnificat (“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…”) was set off by a special set of antiphons, one for each day.  Each of these began with the word “O” and calling upon Christ with one of the various titles and images for him in these early Christians’ reading of their Old Testament.  Each is a meditation on Christ, and on the prophetic vision of the Hebrew prophets. 

 

The “O Antiphons” were a way for the monks to prepare for Christmas.  In an 8^th century manuscript, each of the officials of the monastery are given a separate antiphon to chant on one of the days—together with the responsibility of paying for that day’s wine or holiday snacks for the monks after service or in the upcoming holiday feast! 

 

The titles used all come from prophetic passages, mainly Isaiah:  Wisdom (Sapientia), Lord (Adonai), Stem of Jesse (Radix Jesse), Key of David (Clavis David), Rising Sun (Oriens), King of the Gentiles (Rex Gentium), and, of course, Emmanuel.  The choice of names in this order was intentional:  when read backward from Christmas Eve, the first letter of each title spelled out the message ERO CRAS. “Tomorrow, I will be there!” 

 

Beginning this morning, in our daily morning prayer we may think of singing the Magnificat and the Great O Antiphons, one for each day, in the days leading up to Christmas.  

 

Here is the Magnificat in my translation of the Bible: 

 

MAGNIFICAT

My soul proclaims the Noble One’s greatness;

          my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For God  has noted this hand-maid’s lowliness;
          From this day forth, all ages will call me blessed.
The Mighty One has done great things for me,
          whose name is holy, 
Whose compassion is from age to age
           for those who stand in awe of God,
Who has shown might of arm,
          by scattering the arrogant in mind and heart,
Has thrown down the mighty from their thrones
          but lifted up the lowly,
Has filled the hungry with good things;
          but sent the rich away empty,
Has taken up the cause of God’s servant Isra’el,
          remembering compassion,
Just as God promised to our ancestors,
          to Abraham and his offspring forever.”

                                           (The Ashland Bible)  

 

I encourage all of us to take a little time each day December 17-23 to read aloud and reflect on the antiphons.  I have included my translation of them here, plus a few of the scriptural passages behind them.  Simply reading one a day, either once through or with a Lectio-style repeated reading with contemplation, would make a good addition to our private prayers and devotions as we approach the Holiday. 

 

Grace and Peace,  Fr. Tony+ 

 

ANTIPHONS FOR THE FINAL 7 DAYS OF ADVENT

THE “O” GREAT ANTIPHONS

  

 

Dec. 17

O Sapientia (O Lady Wisdom):

 “O Lady Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and reach from one end of the earth to the other, mightily and sweetly putting all things in order: come and teach us the way of being present!”

“The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah11:2-3); “Wonderful is His counsel and great is His wisdom.” (Isa 28:29).

 

 

Dec. 18

O Adonai (O Yahweh; Lord):

“O Adonai, ruler of the House of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush; on Mount Sinai you gave him your law: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.”

“But He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.” (Isa 11:4-5);  “Indeed the Lord will be there with us, majestic; yes the Lord our judge, the Lord our lawgiver, the Lord our king, he it is who will save us.” (Isa 33:22).

 

 

Dec. 19

O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse):

“O Root of Jesse, you stand as an ensign for all peoples; before you kings stand silent; all nations bow in worship: come and save us, and do not delay.”

“But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.” (Isa 11:1),  “On that day, the root of [David’s father] Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious” (Isa 11:10).  “But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel”  (Micah 5:1).

 

 

Dec. 20

O Clavis David (O Key of David):

“O Key of David, and scepter of the House of Israel; you open and no one closes; you close and no one opens: Come and deliver us from the chains of prison, we who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”

“I will place the Key of the House of David on His shoulder; when he opens, no one will shut, when he shuts, no one will open” (Isa 22:22);  “His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over His kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever” (Isa 9:6).

 

 

Dec. 21

O Oriens (O Eastern Dawn):

“O Rising Dawn, brightness of the light eternal, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown” (Isa 9:1).

 

Dec. 22

O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations, Gentiles):

“O King of all the nations, and their desire, you are the cornerstone that binds two into one: come and save the creature you have fashioned from clay.”

“For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:5); “He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again” (Isa 2:4).

 

 

Dec. 23

O Emmanuel (O God with Us):

“O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Savior: come and set us free, O Lord our God.”

 “The Lord himself will give you this sign: the Virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel” (7:14). 

 

Images by Sr. Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ  

Gaudete (advent 3C)

 

“Gaudete”

15 December 2024

Advent 3C

Homily preached at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
Grants Pass, Oregon

by the Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson 

9:00 a.m. Sung Mass 

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18

 

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

 

A few years ago at this time, my wife Elena and I drove up to Portland to attend the annual performance of the Christmas Revels, that celebration of hope, joy, and peace for Winter Solstice, the shortest day and darkest time of the year.  As we drove, over the radio came news from Sandy Hook Connecticut about a horrific mass shooting at an elementary school. So when we got to the Revels, we were not feeling the joy and hope.  Thinking about the dead first graders, we found ourselves weeping several times while children sang such things as “follow the stars, how they run; see the moon, how it grows,” “What a goodly thing if the children of the world could dwell together in peace,” and “God bless the Master of this House, and his good mistress too, and all the little children that round the table go.”  The call “rejoice, rejoice, rejoice” seemed hollow.    

 

A few years later, three years ago on the Feast of Saint Nicholas (December 6, on Monday that year), my beloved Elena died of a Parkinson’s related stroke.  As much as I liked to think that the Saint had come that day to give her the gift of no more suffering, I was in deep grief and mourning the next Sunday, third Advent, when we are told to put on joy for the upcoming holiday.  

 

Today, once again, is Gaudete (Rejoice!) Sunday.  We light the pink candle on the Advent Wreath, and I am wearing rose vestments.   This is the Sunday when our fearful dread at the coming Day of Doom is supposed to turn into the joyful anticipation of Christ’s birth.  

 

Be happy.  Rejoice.  Smile.  It is what Paul commands us to do in today’s epistle reading.  “Rejoice always, again I say, rejoice.”  Despite all that is in the air, sing a happy song.  

 

But how can we rejoice in the face of such dreadful things and such grief? 

 

I do not think that Paul is giving us a dopey repetition of the nostrum, “Don’t worry, be happy!”  He wrote this letter to the Philippians while in prison, after having been beaten savagely several times for not denouncing his faith.  In his letters he certainly seems to have the full range of human emotion, from grief and sorrow at times to gentle warmth and affection, from blazing anger at times to falling down laughter at other times. But here he is saying “rejoice always.”   

 

Paul is not arguing here for us to become clinically emotionally impaired, whether as rapid-cycling bipolars or sufferers from profound dissociative mixed states of affect.  He is not calling for being untrue to our feelings at the moment.  Rather, he is calling for hope despite our all-too justified fears and grief.   

 

Importantly, Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”   His point is that the source, object, and driver of our joy should be Jesus, not the circumstances we find ourselves in.   He admits that our circumstances can be pretty bad when he says, “do not worry about anything that may happen.” But he says that if we pray and ask God for our deepest desires in all aspects of our lives with a thankful heart, God’s peace, which is beyond understanding, will keep us in the embrace and love of God and Jesus, will keep us in hope.

 

When the French want to tell you to be strong, find hope in the face of trouble, and deal gracefully with what life dishes out, they say “du courage!”  It’s like saying “buck up!” or “hang in there.” 

 

One of the pivotal moments in my life, and one of the greatest bits of counsel I ever received, took place in Beijing China on June 6, 1989.  I had arrived to work at the U.S. Embassy there just days before.  In the closing days of May, things in Beijing had gotten more and more chaotic as the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tian’anmen Square dragged on.  The evening of Saturday June 3, the army moved in to recapture the Square, re-exert control over the city, and terrorize the people back into compliance with the Communist Party’s leadership.   Many of you saw the picture of the single protester standing his ground before a column of tanks.  That scene was unusual.  Generally people who stood in the way were simply run over by the armored personnel carriers, crushed and chewed up by the treads.   For days the army used random shooting toward crowds as a way of cowing people to get off the streets.  More than a thousand were dead, and rumors of dissenting Army units firing on each other raised the specter of Civil War.  In all this, the U.S. Embassy granted refuge to the leading dissidents in the country.  They came in through my office.   The next day, the army opened fire at U.S. diplomatic apartments—some with children in them—in an hour-long shooting spree in which, fortunately, none were killed.   The Ambassador James R. Lilley called us all together to announce that our dependents were being evacuated from the country and that we would mount a full-scale evacuation effort to take stranded Americans in remote parts of the city to the airport.  As we were meeting, automatic weapons fire opened up just outside the Embassy compound where we were meeting.  People crouched beneath the window levels until silence returned.

 

 

Then Ambassador Lilley called us back into order.  What he said then is deeply etched in my memory.  Calmly, with emotion, he said, “We are not often called upon to show courage.  Courage is grace under fire, keeping your head and your heart focused on what you need to do, and why, and then doing it regardless of all the things you cannot control going on around you.  As you go out to help evacuate Americans, you must keep your cool and stay focused. As we send off our spouses and children, not knowing when we might see them again, we must give them confidence and hope by our own calm and love.  Stay on task, remember our values and the oath we took when we entered into Federal service.  Though all might not be well, you will have the calm of knowing you have done everything in your power.  It’s a matter of faith, both having faith, and keeping faith.  It’s called courage, and that is what we must step up to now, so we can make the best of this bad, bad situation.”  The words had particular impact on me as we drove the next two days in convoys across the barricades all over the city, facing the muzzles of AK-47s held by PLA teenage recruits from the provinces shaky with amphetamines to keep them awake.  

I have always thanked God that Jim Lilley knew exactly what to say to us and then modeled courage for us.  He taught where courage comes from.  As African American Spirituals say, “Keep your eyes on the prize! Keep your hand on the plough!  Hold on, hold on!”  This lesson has stayed with me from then until now.   

What Jim Lilley knew was this:  if we keep our minds on the goal and stay on task regardless of how bad things are, if we are true to the better angels in our hearts, grace under fire just happens.   We are no longer overwhelmed by the things over which we have no control.  And we find we can even find humor, satisfaction, and yes, even joy in pursuing our course, come hell or high water.  

It’s there in today’s Canticle: 

 

“Surely it is God who saves me, 

trusting him, I shall not fear,  

The Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, 

and he will be my Savior.

Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing 
from the springs of salvation.”

 

Paul says the joy that we can have at all times, the peace which passes understanding, is in “joy in the Lord.”  “In the Lord.” That means Jesus is the prize that we need to keep our eyes on.  His teachings are the plough we must keep our hands on.  Focusing on him is what keeps joy and hope alive in us, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in.   

 

Carols of this season put it well.  One says, “Good Christians all, this Christmas time, remember well, and keep in mind, what God Himself for us has done, in sending His Beloved Son.”  Another says, “So let us be happy, put sorrows away, remember Christ Jesus was born on this day.”  Another: “Good Christians all rejoice, with heart and minds and voices, give ye heed to what we say, Jesus Christ is born this day.”  And this, despite hardship:  “Ox and ass before him bow and he is in the manger now.”  And the Latin carol we often hear choirs sing this time of year, “Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus ex Maria Virgine, gaudete!”

The Revels performance is so moving to me each year precisely because they celebrate the Light in the darkest and drearest part of the year.  A poem written for the Revels and read at each performance sums the idea up well:

 

The Shortest Day
By Susan Cooper
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

 

Hope in the darkness, joy despite suffering and brokenness.  Even if inchoate, even if expressed in revelling alone, it is the joy of God.  Not a hollow, “don’t worry be happy!” but deep joy and relief at the dawning of the Light which the darkness cannot overcome, deep thanks for the coming of the Good and Love that Evil cannot destroy.  

 

Let us go forth from this Eucharist today, this Great Thanksgiving, renewed and recommitted to joy, to love, to caring for children, to supporting and healing the ill and reconciling hurt, and to forgiveness.  Of course, let us mourn the people and things we need to mourn.  But in this all, may joy in Christ inspire us to work for a better world, both in our own lives and in the common life we share together.  

 

In the name of Christ, Amen.  

 

Compassion not Wrath. (Advent 2C)

 

Compassion not Wrath

8 December 2024

Advent 2C

Homily preached at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Medford, Oregon

9:00 a.m. Sung Mass

 

Malachi 3:1-4; Canticle 16; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

 

God, let us not accept the judgment that this is all we are. Stir in our hearts a desire to change—with hope that all of us can change. Break our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

 

Zechariah in the Temple blesses the newborn John the Baptist this way:

 

“You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,

To give his people knowledge of salvation

by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace”.

 

“In the tender compassion of our God,” John will prepare the way for Jesus whose light will break upon us and lead us In “the way of peace.”    

 

We live in a world not at peace.  We live in a world very short on compassion.  We see how bad things are and seem able to blame only our enemies, those whom Zechariah calls “those who hate us.”  

 

We are sick with anger, broken with wrath.  

 

Look at how we have handled the electoral campaign--stirring up hatred of foreigners, trans people, and socialists on the one side and fearful hate of Nazis, fascists, and racists on the other.  And the election’s aftermath:  derisive gloating here, and deep resentment at those who voted differently from us, here. We even hear people in our own country say that maybe the only solution is what Chairman Mao called the source of all political power, the barrel of a gun.  And on Thursday this week, we woke to news about the murder of the CEO of one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, one that had twice the denial rate of any other company.  The casings of the bullets used had inscribed on them the words summarizing the policies framed by the murdered man, “delay, deny, defend.” That’s bad enough, but then we were treated to a chorus of “this murder was justified,” some of it muted, with moralizing tut-tuts at violence in the abstract, but cheering nevertheless for real violence.   

 

Anger and wrath, hatred and fear. On all sides.  No matter who started it, no matter who might be the most at fault, it breaks God’s heart.  And it should break ours too.

 

As I was reminded by dear friends at St. John’s Cathedral in Hong Kong when Saddam Hussein was killed and beloved colleagues were celebrating, in Ezekiel we read, “As sure as I am the living God, I take no pleasure from the death of the wicked. I want the wicked to change their ways and live. Turn your life around! Reverse your evil ways!” (Ezek 33:11)

 

But isn’t wrath an attribute of God?  Isn’t it what is needed in response to patent evil? Isn’t it what “the Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord,” the Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath, is all about? About God punishing the wicked?   Isn’t that the point of having John the Baptist appear on 2nd Advent as a dour prophet calling out “Repent or be punished!”?

 

I admit it, the idea of wrathful settling of scores lies behind most of the hopes of ancient Judaism for an ideal king of the future, an anointed David. Though at times he is called “the prince of Peace,” the main reason people hoped for a Messiah was that he would use force to set things right.

 

The fact is, there are plenty of things in this world that justify “righteous” anger. 

 

But as justified as anger may seem, it is something, in the words of Bill Wilson, perhaps better left to healthier people than we have proven ourselves to be.

 

The Bible talks a lot about the wrath of God.  But it also says that God is love. Some texts each us to love our enemies, but others command us to hate the wicked, or at least avoid them, and ask God to punish and destroy those who cause such harm to us.

 

We read, “I am a jealous God, visiting the sins of the wicked on their families for four generations!”  But we also read “God is  slow to anger and of great kindness!”    

 

People try to reconcile these contradictory texts.  Some: God loves the sinner but hates sin. Some: love is demanding, love is tough.  Some: the wrath of God is placated by Jesus taking the place of the wicked on the cross and suffering in the stead of those who have faith in him.  In all these views, a bloodthirsty Deity can calm his wrath only through the shedding of blood, anyone’s blood.  Yikes.    

 

These are cheap ways of reconciling the irreconcilable.  

 

The problem with them is that they keep focused on God as angry, rather than as loving.   The wrath of God is what destines us, in this view, to a burning lake of fire and brimstone for the eternities. 

   

Jonathan Edwards’ classic sermon, “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” shows us what the doctrine of the literal wrath of God is:  

 

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.  …[T]here is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. … O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder…”

 

Again, Yikes!  

 

This is not God as love.  And it is not the God that Jesus taught.  

 

For Jesus, God is a loving parent, our abba or papa.  

 

For Jesus, God is a healer, a physician, not an Emperor, policeman, or a judge in a court of law.  

 

For Jesus, we should not try to avoid the wicked, but engage them   “It is not the well that need a physician, but the ill.”  It isn’t uncleanness we need to worry about, but rather unkindness, cruelty, and abuse of others.  It isn’t boundaries between neighbors and foreigners that count, but our need to be neighborly to those who hate us, like that Samaritan. 

 

For such ideas as these, Jesus was accused of being a sinner himself, spending all his time with whores, drunks, and greedy traitors.

 

When we talk about the wrath of God, just remember that this does not describe the heart of God.  Any talk about God’s emotions or passions should be an affirmation that God is more than us, not less.  God’s wrath as an idea reminds us that justice is a basic character of God.  But it does not mean that God is bloodthirsty, or has an anger management problem.  To take such an image literally would be to say that God is as messed up as we are, driven to engage in abuse to make a point or satisfy an interior rage.  

 

No.  “The wrath of God” describes how things feel to us when we are alienated from God.  We find salvation in the cross not by Jesus substituting for us as the literal aim of God’s rage, but by us participating with the God made man in his mortal sufferings and ultimate victory over death and the world’s brokenness.   

 

C.S. Lewis, in talking about Hell, that ultimate image of God’s anger, imagines that it is a condition created by our own refusal of God’s grace.  He puts it this way, “In the end, when all is said and done, there are two groups of people:  those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘alright, have it your own way.’”  

 

Beloved, Jesus taught us to be compassionate as our Father in heaven is compassionate, not wrathful as God is seen by wrathful people.  He taught us to love our enemies.  

 

For the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without [first] accept[ing] the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. … The forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged… [It] does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that [we no longer let] the evil act …. remain… as a barrier to … relationship. Forgiveness [creates the chance] for a fresh start… It is the lifting of a burden…, the cancelling of…debt.  …The evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. A persistent civil war rages within [us all] … There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. When we look beneath the surface…, we see within our enemy-neighbor a measure of goodness and know that [his evil acts are] not quite representative of all that he is… We know [that, despite all of the distortions], God’s image is ineffably etched in [him, and that he is] not beyond the reach of God’s redemptive love.  …We must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but [rather] to win his friendship and understanding. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

 

This is what the elderly Zechariah is saying: Compassion drives God’s acts toward us, including giving us Jesus as the embodiment of compassion.  By changing our minds and hearts, repenting, we come to share in Jesus’s compassion.  And in this, we experience rescue from our brokenness, from our slavery to wrath, and find the way of peace.

 

Let us pray,

 

“Gracious Jesus, grant us your tender compassion.  Shine your light on us who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.  Break our wrathful hearts of stone, and give us compassionate hearts of flesh.  Guide our feet into the way of peace, as hard as that may appear to us”.  Amen.