 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Friday, December 24, 2021 The last day of Advent: Christmas Eve! Service at 5:30  Today you know that the Lord will come and in the morning you will see his glory! That’s the antiphon on the Magnificat for Christmas Eve – and a wonderful one it is, too.It originates from a passage in Exodus 16: 6-8 where the people, hungry in the desert after their escape from Egyptian slavery, were promised food – manna: “So Moses and Aaron said to the Israelites, ‘In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord…’ And…The seven “O” antiphons were ordered as they were back in the 6th century for a specific reason. The author was playing a sort of word game – but a wonderful one. If you look at the words backwards, and notice the first letter of each title in Latin, from Emmanuel (God is with us), Rex (King), Oriens (daystar), Clavis (key),Radix (root), Adonai (Lord) to Sapientia (Wisdom.) – it reads: Ero Cras: Tomorrow I will be/or I will come! People who love words, and love seeing deeply into the Word, often played with words in what they wrote – I personally love this. But we only see it when we look back…as is so often true in life. And…Revelation 22:20, the last page of the Bible, reads, “Surely I am coming soon! “Even so, come, Lord Jesus’  Two Pieces of News First – I missed Julie Cook’s birthday on the 20th – apologies! And I hope you are still having a happy birthday! Second, I learned today that Barbara Huddle recently died. We will be placing her ashes in the columbarium in a few days when her daughters arrive. Only a few of you will remember her. Nearly all of those who were here when she and Clyde were have died – or moved away. She was a character – in every sense of that! This afternoon I will think of her especially as we set out the luminarias. Many years ago, the first time we did it, before she had any children other than Marcus, my Becca became very ill very suddenly. Barbara took her to the ER. And then she stayed with her all during the afternoon and evening as I had to keep Marcus with me, and then stay to celebrate the Christmas Eve Eucharist. It was quite a Christmas! And Barbara was there – totally there – for us. |
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