O King of Nations

December 21:
O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.
O King of nations and their desire, the Cornerstone, uniting both in one: come and save mankind, whom you formed of clay.

This antiphon’s meditation is on the function of the King, taking up the Davidic identity of the Messiah once again. He is to be universal, yearned for, one whose strength and stability are foundational, and whose stoney nature gives the necessary strength to us who, formed of clay, have no strength on our own.

Jeremiah 10:7 is probably the source for the title Rex Gentium: “Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For that is your due; among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is no one like you:” Quis non timebit te o rex gentium tuum est enim decus inter cunctos sapientes gentium et in universis regnis eorum nullus est similis tui.

Their Desire is from Haggai 2:7: movebo omnes gentes et veniet desideratus cunctis gentibus et implebo domum: “And I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts.” Note that the NRSV here translates the title as treasure.

The Cornerstone may come from Isaiah 28:16: "Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: "One who trusts will not panic:" Ecce ego mittam in fundamentis Sion lapidem lapidem probatum angularem pretiosum in fundamento fundatum. Qui crediderit non festinet.

But the image of Jesus as the cornerstone is one of the key christological images of the New Testament, picked up in all three of the synoptic gospels (Mark 12:10, Matthew 21:42, Luke 20:17) as well as in Acts 4:11. It also figures in Ephesians 2:20 and 1 Peter 2:6. It is from Psalm 118:22-23 (Psalm 117 in the Vulgate numeration): “ The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes:” Lapis quem reprobaverunt aedificantes factus est in caput anguli. A Domino factum est istud et hoc mirabile in oculis nostris.

And then, we are formed of clay. This is clearly from the second creation story in Genesis 2:7: Formavit igitur Dominus Deus hominem de limo terrae et inspiravit in faciem eius spiraculum vitae et factus est homo in animam viventem: “Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” It is tempting to look to the prophetic tradition for the image of God’s people as the clay and God as the potter, but for that image the Vulgate uses another word for clay: instead of limum, lutum.

But the key to understanding all these images is the phrase “uniting both in one”. The common theme of all the images is that the coming Christ will bring disparate, fractile things into unity, solidity: he will unite nations under one king, provide a common desire to which they are all drawn, become the single cornerstone on which the stresses of a stone building can rest secure, give the weak clay of created human nature the promise of the strong stone of the redeemed human nature in the risen Christ. This image finds its clearest expression in Ephesians 2:13-14, and in the context of bringing warring nations and peoples together: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us:” Nunc autem in Christo Iesu vos qui aliquando eratis longe facti estis prope in sanguine Christi. Ipse est enim pax nostra qui fecit utraque unum et medium parietem maceriae solvens inimicitiam in carne sua: Note the phrase taken up so priminently in the antiphon: utraque unum.

The coming Christ is the king for the nations, whose strength brings stability and peace and gives us, weak as we are, a hope that we are more than the clay from which we have been formed.

So much of the politics of the world rests on convincing people that this or that ideology will bring unity and strength to people who are fractured and weak. The history of the twentieth century should warn us of the dangers of that kind of politics. But it is nothing new. Demagogues have been appealing to this desire of the nations since the dawn of time. It is the genius of the messianic hope to place all these would-be saviors under the judgment of the better one who is to come, and to warn us when we want to follow one political savior or another that none of these folks is ultimate. None of them is attractive enough or strong enough or stable enough or wise enough to give us an ultimate answer. And if we do give them the trust due only to the Messiah, the result is more likely to be a gulag or an Auschwitz or a party despotism or a great leap forward which is actually a great leap backward, and all of it saturated in blood, as it is the promised fulfillment of human longing. Placed in us at the moment when the breath of God animated the clay we are still so close to, that longing is God's gift to us, the hope that keeps the human race striving after better rule, better politics, a more just world.