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December 20, 2018O Key of David, scepter of the house of Israel, what you open none can shut, and what you shut, none can open: come! Bring the prisoner out of his dungeon where he sits in darkness and the shadow of death!
In his first coming Jesus was the key to the understanding of all the promises of God, the key that opened to us the very heart of God. Unlike the lawyers of his time, he did not take away the key of knowledge but opened the door for all to enter. At his last coming he alone will be able to open the scroll and break the seals of it in order to reveal to us the secrets of God. And in this middle time, are there doors that he comes to open and others that he comes to shut?
There are some doors that God does desire to remain shut. Never return to Egypt, he told the Israelites, and he says the same to us, whatever our Egypt may be—thoughts unworthy of his truth and love, preoccupations that block us from being open to him with our whole heart and mind, a habit that imprisons us, prejudices that blind us. Likewise the doors that he opens are the truths that set us free and the spirit of communion with others that brings us out of our dungeons and darkness. There is also the door that opens to intimacy with him, to the divine indwelling:
“Open to me, my sister, my love, my perfect one, for my head is covered with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.
My Beloved thrust his hand through the hole in the door. I trembled to the core of my being. Then I rose and opened to my Beloved.
Myrrh ran off my hands, pure myrrh off my fingers on to the handle of the bolt.
I opened to my Beloved, but he had turned his back and gone!”
Where did he go and why did he not come in, he who asked us to open the door? Did he not wish to come in and make his home with us? Yes, we have his word for it, he desires to come in. Then why, when we open, do we not always find him? Someone gave me an answer once I can never forget. When we open the door and find him gone, it is because he wants us to come out. So let us open the door and follow him into the night. Let us seek him anew and never cease seeking, even, and particularly, when his comings are unfamiliar and stretch us beyond ourselves.
Image: O Key of David, by Robyn Sand Anderson
