O Key of David

And scepter of Israel, who open, and no one can avail to close, who close, and no one can open: O come! Come to free us from our prison, where we sit and languish in darkness, where we wait in the shadow of death.

The nice thing about traveling by plane is roaming around in airport bookstores packed with magazines and journals and titles of all kinds. They beckon like neon signs: “The Key to winning the Lottery” and Harry Potter’s books about hidden doors and keys of magic power.  Enough entertainment to make a long flight short, especially when squeezed into a middle seat!

I move on to my gate where passengers are boarding.  The plane is taking off now and heading towards the heavens. I open the Book of Revelation, and I read in Chapter 4: “I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.”

I look with passionate curiosity out the window into the heavens outside. Just clouds.  But what I see in my mind’s eye is something more: not the Eternal Jerusalem of Gold, the City of Light. What I see instead is the world.  The world 30,000 feet below me – with its buildings, traffic, noise; its people, its pollution and crime.
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Something shifts in my perception now, as if an invisible door stands opened. I suddenly experience this world as a sign.  Pointing to the great Mystery that is at the heart of everything that exists. A foreshadowing of things to come.

One day we will awaken in the new heavens and the new earth and possess whatever we hoped for. There is far more to life than we see going on in our anxiety-ridden world. Whatever the bad reports of the daily news, there is also terrific, good news:  Jesus the open door to into heaven. The world has a happy ending after all.

O Key of the House of David, Jesus, you alone hold the key to the underworld and the key to the throne of God. Little do we know about the future world, but you gave us the promise that the Father of all Goodness will prove himself trustworthy. The dark shadow has departed and one day all things shall be well.