Today the Christian year begins anew. And this year we get to celebrate this new beginning on the first of the month, and with a fresh snow. Snow has the wonderful effect of bringing a certain kind of hush upon the noise of the world.
The prophetic descriptions of the turmoil of earthly life in the Little Apocalypse from Luke’s Gospel are palpable. The unsettling, confusion, distress and waiting from fear, are, as Christ tells us— signs of something greater and more wonderful coming into the world.
Advent is the festival of the speaking of the Divine Word into the stream of earthly events. At the beginning of Creation the Word spoke everything into existence. At the turning point of time, the Word incarnated into a human being as Jesus Christ. And now? What is the Word speaking now?
Though we can call ourselves human beings, we also, with a bit of humility, must admit, we are not yet fully human! The human being is still being born—and even in the midst of the tumult of the world. Who is it then, that is still wanting to be born in us? Who and what is waiting to be revealed in us, through us?
When a word is spoken, in order to hear it, we have to listen. When that word is a name it is not enough to hear it the first time, but we have to make a practice of listening into that name by giving our attention to the being behind it. Who does that name NAME? A divine aspect of the human being is wanting to be born into the world through every individual human being.
The ancient prayers of Advent that we sing in the beloved hymn O Come Emmanuel are a practice of listening into the Name of the Divine Human Being. These O Antiphons, as they are called, lead us in seven steps into an understanding of the truly spiritualized Anthropos— the earthly human being. In their proper order (in Latin/English) they are:
O Sapentia—O Wisdom—O Logos—the great Word of God wielding through the Cosmos!
O Adonai—O Lord—the One God
O Radix Jesse—O Root of Jesse—the stream of heredity and life into which all human beings enter earthly existence
O Clavis David—O Key of David—the power within each individual to be sovereign over one’s own inner moral life
O Oriens—O Dayspring—the light of justice and truth, what Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr referred to when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
O Rex Gentium—O King of the Gentiles/Nations—the universal Christ, who unites with the earth and all its people
O Emmanuel—O God is with us—the incarnation into Jesus, and every human being.
These, in brief, lead us from the Word speaking through all of Creation—to the incarnation of the divine within the human being which gives us the power to live out of our Eternal Name, our Spirit! and bless the earth with the gifts we long to bring.
When we are born each us of begins the work of consecrating the human temple of our body. We are baptized so that our earthly name is joined with this eternal name—the name, the power and the glory of our highest creative potential. To baptize is to unite a child’s name with the power of the Holy Trinity—that we may be, create and, united with Holy Spirit—enlighten—bring light to the Creation.
Christ’s coming into the world happened in a very special way those two thousand years ago. But it is not finished and will not be finished until every human being has heard the call to become a Son or Daughter of God, to take up our rightful place in the Creation as those made in His Image, those who are destined to become co-creators of the future world evolution.
This is why Advent is the festival of listening and hearing that very special word spoken out of the fire of the Spirit: Become!
Rev. Liza Joy Marcato