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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sunday after church, I encouraged people to come to Advent Vespers tonight by saying that I was looking forward to finding out more about our third O Antiphon’s and hymn verse’s calling Jesus “Dayspring”. A few of you chuckled then, as I intended, but, as it turns out, the comment was not so funny! Our previous two O Antiphons’ calling Jesus “Wisdom from on high” or “Key of David” has relatively deep and clear roots in the Bible, but the roots of our calling Jesus “Dayspring” are less deep and less clear. Starting with the Antiphon’s Latin word leads us only to a passage from the Old Testament book of Zechariah and to the passage from the Gospel according to St. Luke that we heard as our Third Reading. And, translators and interpreters differ when it comes both to what is meant in those two passages and to how those passages relate both to each other and to the rest of Holy Scripture. For example, the English Standard Version of the Third Reading used the word “sunrise” where the older American Standard Version and King James Version both use the word “dayspring”. While both “sunrise” and “dayspring” essentially mean “first light of day”, not everyone thinks “first light of day” is what is meant in the Luke passage. For our purposes tonight, we will stick to how “Dayspring” refers to Jesus and not even get into the other uses of the word “dayspring” or the related issues of the references to and meanings of “day-star”, “morning star”, and “Lucifer”.
Locate tonight’s O Antiphon, either on the outside front cover of your service folder or inside at the bottom of the first page. Let us pray it the way we will sing it in a bit, with the congregation taking the indented portion.
O Dayspring, splendor of light everlasting:
Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
Calling Jesus “Dayspring” relates and matters to us in much the same way that it related and mattered to the people in the Bible. The people of Israel wandering for 40 years in the desert wilderness were encouraged by Balaam’s God-given oracle, which we heard in our First Reading, of a star coming out of Jacob, a scepter rising out of Israel. That royal Rising Star would deliver the Israelites by crushing their enemies. Balaam saw that Dayspring, but not then, Balaam beheld Him, but not near. No, indeed, the Dayspring at that point was still some 15-hundred years in the future! But, the Israelites believed the Dayspring would arise and so were saved through that faith. Fast-forward some 15-hundred years, and you have Zechariah, in our Third Reading, prophesying to his newborn son John the Baptizer. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Zechariah speaks of God fulfilling prophecy of old by that same Dayspring from on high visiting them to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
How are you and I with darkness? I can hardly imagine someone who was not, at one point or another in his or her life, afraid of the dark. At a minimum, we might feel vulnerable. Maybe we are unable to move because we cannot see where to go. Motion-sensitive outside security-lights might make us feel safer in our homes. Headlights on our cars might enable us to proceed down darkened drives. But, Zechariah describes the people of his day and us as those who not only sit in darkness but are also in the shadow of death. The death we by nature deserve on account of our original and actual sin stands so close to us that its shadow already rests upon us, indicating our utter doom. So deplorable and desperate is our natural spiritual condition!
You and I probably already realize that we are far from being the kind of blameless people from whom God in our Psalm promises not to withhold any good thing. We are probably here tonight because we are answering the kind of call to repent that John the Baptizer made, the call to repent Zechariah alluded to in speaking of John going before the Lord to prepare His ways. That same call to repent sounds forth not only from John the Baptizer but also both from the prophets before him and from Jesus, His apostles, and their successors after him, all the way down to me today. God calls you and me both to turn from our sin in sorrow and to trust Him to forgive our sin. When we so turn and believe, God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sin for the sake of Jesus, the Dayspring.
In the Third Reading, Zechariah says that the Lord, the Dayspring from on high, has visited and has redeemed His people, that He has raised up a horn of salvation, in other words, a powerful Savior. God the Father in His mercy and love sent His Son, Jesus, to be that Dayspring, that Savior. We heard in the Second Reading how the Son is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His divine nature, but the Son, Jesus, is also true man. He took on a human nature so that He could deliver us. As kings like David and Solomon delivered the Israelites of old from their enemies, Jesus delivers us from our enemies. Jesus’s death on the cross may have looked like defeat, but Jesus’s death on the cross was, in fact, victory—victory for us over sin, death, and the power of the devil. The Second Reading refers to Jesus’s making purification for sins and then sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. As Zechariah had prophesied, John the Baptizer gave knowledge of that purification for sins, or forgiveness of sins, that is our salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. When we believe that Jesus died for us as individuals, that He died to forgive your sin or my sin as an individual, then we are forgiven. The Dayspring, the “first light of day”, so enlightens us who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
The Church has long associated such enlightenment with Holy Baptism. At the Baptismal font, water comprehended in God’s command and connected with God’s word works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. To symbolize such “enlightenment”, the ancient church brought the newly-baptized from a darker baptistery to a gloriously-lit sanctuary. More recently, congregations have used baptismal candles and then given them to the newly baptized to help them remember their Baptism. Not only Holy Baptism but also the preached Gospel, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion are ways that the Dayspring comes and enlightens us who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
The roots of our third Antiphon’s calling Jesus “Dayspring” may be less deep and less clear than calling Him “Wisdom” or “Key of David”, but tracing out those roots, nevertheless, has been beneficial. We understand that Jesus as the “first light” of the new day delivers us from our enemies. And, we hear from Zechariah that He delivers us so that we, being delivered, might “serve Him” without fear. A better translation than “serve Him” is “worship Him”, which we do here, by seeking and receiving His forgiveness for all of our sins. Here, as our Psalm tonight put it, we dwell inside the House of the Lord, where it is better to be even one day, or better even to be just outside as a doorkeeper, than to be one thousand days elsewhere, such as inside the tents of the wicked. So, we pray again the O Antiphon for tonight, responsively:
O Dayspring, splendor of light everlasting:
Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +