THE KEY OF DAVID AND SCEPTRE OF ISRAEL


20 DECEMBER

Isa 7:10-14; Ps 24:1-6; Lk 1:26-38

Jesus, Key of David and Sceptre of Israel

The Church invokes and praises the Saviour as the Key of David and Sceptre of Israel. We understand the former title from different perspectives. As the Key of David, the Son of Man is the access to the promised House that God is to build for David. David's desire and intention were to build a house for God. But God made him understand through Nathan the prophet that it is not man who builds a house for God, but rather the reverse is the case; God builds an everlasting house for Himself and for man. In the first instance, we understand man to be the original house God is constructing for himself. In the second instance, in the house that man is, each of us learn to live in the house of God, in communion with him. So, God is building us into a house where he will dwell with us in communion. In this latter sense, David was already being constructed into a house for God by his faith in the word of God. By his firm faith in God, David housed the word of God and became a veritable means of establishing the kingdom of Israel, which would be fully taken over by God when the Eternal Word becomes man as the Son of David. This is the meaning of the second title: ‘Sceptre of Israel.’ Just as the personal house of God that David became served the establishment of the Sceptre or kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Israel will serve the establishment of the mystical House of God by receiving the Eternal Word.

The establishment of the mystical house or kingdom of God was Isaiah’s concern when he remonstrated with the king, Ahaz. In the face of the Syro-Ephraimite threat of war against him, the prophet intended to let the king understand the divine foundation of the sceptre he is holding. “The Lord spoke to Ahaz and said, ‘Ask the Lord your God for a sign for yourself coming either from the depths of Sheol or from the heights above.’ ‘No,’ Ahaz answered, ‘I will not put the Lord to the test.’” In this clumsy answer from the king, was hidden his lack of faith in the word of God given to him by the prophet Isaiah. Because the kingdom can only be firmly established by faith in the word of God, any act of unfaithfulness undermines the foundation of the divine kingdom and its establishment. Thus, Isaiah scolded the king’s faithlessness. “Listen now, House of David: are you not satisfied with trying the patience of men without trying the patience of my God, too?” The Lord went ahead to give him the ancient sign of salvation. “The maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us.”’ The meaning of the name of the Son to be born of the privileged maiden implies the dwelling of God with men, which is the mystical house of God that the kingdom of Israel is to serve as a means to the end.

The Son of the Maiden is not just the Key of David, as we have explained, but more than that, he is also the Key to the mystery of our redemption from sin and evil. As we have often noted, the ancient promise of salvation given to our first parents became concrete in the promise of a progeny to Abraham, through whom all peoples and nations would bless themselves. The same promise took a dynastic tune in David, to whom God promised an everlasting house or kingdom. The fulfilment of the ancient promise is what the Gospel presents to us in the encounter between the angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. “The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’” By this greeting, Gabriel signified that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the House of God in the redemptive sense, for her Son would be called Immanuel, God-is-with-us. Hence, she is the first mystical type of human person, and would also be their principle. Gabriel’s words imply as much: “Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.” These are the meanings of these sacred titles.

O key of David and sceptre of Israel, what you open no one else can close again; what you close, no one can open. O come and lead the captive from prison; free those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Let us pray: O God, eternal majesty, whose ineffable Word the immaculate Virgin conceived through the message of an Angel and so became the dwelling-place of divinity, filled with the light of the Holy Spirit, grant, we pray, that by her example we may in humility hold fast to your will. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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