The idea of “signs” generally makes me uncomfortable. Not street signs, or any other kind of wayfinding, those of course are quite welcome! The concept of some kind of occurrence being interpreted as a sign for what action I am to take or how I am to proceed seems a little suspect at best. Do we really get “signs from the universe”? I think not; superstitious much? And yet, I can’t discount the fact that God truly does reveal Himself, often through the world around us. Where is the line between imagined signals from fate or some other imagined impersonal and nonexistent Thing, and genuine promptings from the Holy Spirit? I don’t really know. Everything around me – music, podcasts, Advent readings, the time of year, my church’s Christmas theme, and more – is pointing to light versus darkness, and it seems like too much to interpret as coincidence. (Do those even exist in a world where God is sovereign?)
It seems fitting that today, on the winter solstice, the day of the year with the most darkness and least sunlight (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), I would be thinking of these themes. We round the corner into brighter days, and anticipate a light dawning in the darkness – the Dayspring, the Bright and Morning Star, crests the horizon in the guise of a Child when Christ is born. He brings light into a dark world, and with it comes a thrill of hope for the weary world.
Isaiah’s words are poignant in the bleak of midwinter: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” (Isaiah 9:2, KJV) I’m reminded too of the Psalms: “Light dawns in the darkness for the upright” (Ps 112:4, ESV); “Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart” (Ps 97:11, ESV). Isaiah follows this heralding of dawn with the announcement of the birth of the Messiah: “For unto us a Son is given.” Light and joy are brought to us, who formerly walked in darkness, through Christ.
Despite the fast-approaching end to the 2022 Advent/Christmas season, yet the second Advent, the coming of Christ the victorious King, is still awaited. We are still weary, living still in a dark world and waiting yet for the heralded Dawn that will not end. Perhaps it is for this stretch of longing – the indeterminate time whose appointed end is known only by the Father – more than the 4-week “Advent season” to which the ancient liturgical prayers, known as the O Antiphons or Greater Antiphons, give voice. Two of these in particular I have found profound and helpful.
O Clavis
O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
O Oriens
O Dayspring,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
For further reading and contemplation:
Handel’s “Messiah”, Part 1:11
Malcolm Guite, O Clavis – an original sonnet inspired by the Antiphon, as well as musical settings and artwork by Linda Richardson
Malcolm Guite, O Oriens – an original sonnet inspired by the Antiphon, as well as musical settings and artwork by Linda Richardson