A way out of our mess

"I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." Isaiah 49.6

This promise was made to the nation of Israel and fulfilled in Jesus. Yesterday's O-Antiphon hailed him as the Dayspring. Not a word one hears every day, "dayspring" suggests the source of light. 21 December is officially the darkest day of the year. Unofficially this year may go down as the darkest in human history, on account of the pandemic which has claimed so many lives and thrown the world economy into turmoil. 2021 also brought further news of the environmental catastrophe we are bringing upon ourselves, by our continuing failure to live within our means in order to share the resources of creation.

Today's O-Antiphon is Capstone. A capstone is what holds an arch together. If the nations of the world were to be a gigantic arch, Jesus would be the capstone holding the whole structure together. The Bible offers a bleak view of our current predicament, in which the world has rejected Jesus as "capstone" thereby depriving us all of the opportunity for reconciliation, fulfilment and strength. But the same Bible goes on to foresee a day in which Jesus will confound his enemies and assert his authority, in order to bring about the redeeming of creation. Christians are witnesses of that future!