The Great 'O' Antiphons: O Rex Gentium - December 22nd

O king of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you have fashioned from clay.

There is something interesting about the type of King in this antiphon, three main points perhaps? The first takes us deep into the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures, those oracles of God uttered in His name deep in the ancestral history of faith. Isaiah pulls together nearly all of the images given us in the text, the unfold I several passages but we firstly remind ourselves that unlike many earthly potentates throughout the centuries; this King is definitively connected to God and reigns as God's representative,

'For the people that walked in darkness now see a great light'(Is 9.2) and will know joy and rejoicing at the destruction of cruelty and evil. 'For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called ,Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace '.(Is 9.6) Part of his role is to bring things together so that there is peace, but it is also to turn the worlds values upside down.

Christ's reign is the reconciliation of opposites where the innocent , unnoticed , unheard ones have the voice of God, where human and animal are at one with each other and all creation is somehow connected together in wonder and harmony. That is the handiwork of the divine potter who metaphorically gets his hands dirty in clay to fashion all life and see it as beautiful, this is a King who creates not destroys!

Is this fanciful, will this ever happen? The first coming of Christ is a marker that it eventually will, for salvation is now our song! Jesus, the King of the nations points out the route we are called to, the people of light who prepare the way for the great day of his return!

In the New Testament, there are wonderful theological analogies about the body of Christ; here we have the building metaphor, the cornerstone of our living building is Christ. It took me a while to recognize that the cornerstone is not only a marker, but in fact the reference point for the whole design! The writer of Ephesians 2.20 makes it clear that for us this building is faith, and it is only on Christ we build our lives ! He becomes our reference point for all we do! So let's help beat swords into ploughshares, turn spears into pruning forks so that we may plant, grow and harvest Christ's peace amongst the nations, not in the future, but now!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Catholic Chaplain for the Melkites in the UK. He is also an Ecumenical Canon of Christ Church Oxford