"O Key of David, and Scepter of the House of Israel, you open and none can shut, you shut and none can open. Come, and bring the captives out of the prison house, those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death." Scepters have gone out of fashion in the modern world, but keys are tools which we all use every day. Probably every adult here today could reach into a pocket or purse and pull out keys. We use keys as security against theft, and to insure our privacy. Not only do keys open doors and turn on cars, they also open mailboxes and safes, bicycle locks and electronic security systems. Some keys are not physical objects but computer passwords and personal identification numbers. They all serve the same function, however, to permit authorized access, and to prevent unauthorized access.

When I was investigating the background of this Advent antiphon, I came across a drawing of a first century key, dug up at an archaeological site in Israel. I was fascinated to see how different it was from the keys we are familiar with, and had a model made. This is what it looks like. It was not the kind of key you could put in your pocket! And it was not an object that the average person in ancient Israel possessed. Keys would only have been used at the royal palace, and at the Temple. Listen now to the Old Testament source of our antiphon, from Isaiah 22: "Thus says the Lord, Go to this steward Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him . . . I will thrust you from your office . . . and I will call my servant Eliakim, and I will clothe him with your robe, . . .and commit your authority to his hand, and I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open and none shall shut; and he shall shut and none shall open". The royal steward would have been the prime minister: a court official who advised the king, and controlled access to the king. Shebna had been giving bad advice to the King, so God told Isaiah that Eliakim should be chosen in his place. The key which the steward carried on his shoulder probably opened the court where the king sat on his throne and ruled the land. To possess the key of David, was to exercise complete power over the household, second only to the king.

At this point you may be wondering what the key of David has to do with Advent, or the coming of Jesus. Just as we heard last Sunday, that a fulfilled prophecy became a metaphor for the ministry of John the Baptist, so today, the key and scepter of David were real objects used by King David, which now become metaphors for the kingship of Jesus Christ. We know this from the Book of Revelation, where it says that "the true one has the key of David" (3:7). So these metaphors of key and scepter, point us toward the expectations that a descendant of David would arise and be anointed by God to re-establish the kingdom of Israel. Remember that the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and deported half people of Judah in 587 BC. When the people returned from exile 50 years later, they tried to become an independent state again, but they were too small, and were caught between the bigger armies and larger kingdoms of Egypt, Greece, and Syria.

This was the context in which there arose the hope of Messiah, which means "anointed one". The Jewish people expected the anointed descendant of David would restore the kingdom and rule it. In our first reading from Isaiah today, we heard one of these hopes about what the restored kingdom would be like: "the Lord has anointed me . . .to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken hearted, and release to the prisoners..." At first this hope was entirely for a change in the political situation, and the expected Messiah was a human being descended from David.

In the centuries just before and after the birth of Jesus, a number of charismatic leaders were hailed for a time as Messiah, because people believed the prophecies and wanted them to see them fulfilled. In 142 BC the last son of Mattathias, Simon, was able briefly to restore the political independence of Judea. He was appointed high priest, and was given the title Prince of the People of God. He was not called king because he was not a descendant of David, but some people did think he was Messiah. There were others: Hezekiah, Judas the Galilean, and Theudas. Once Roman rule was established in Judaea, the question of how to identify the Messiah became ever more urgent.

And so the focus of our Gospel reading, is entirely on John's identity: who is he, and why is he baptizing people out in the desert. It was the religious establishment, the priests and Levites, who needed to find out exactly who John was. They came from Jerusalem to question him in the desert, and they seem to have asked him directly, Are you the Messiah? When he denied that he was, they pressed him to identify himself: Was he Elijah? Was he the Prophet? No doubt they found his answer insufficient: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness". Then they asked him why he was baptizing, since he didn't fit their categories. This delegation from the Temple was certainly not ready to hear about "one who stands among you, the thong of whose sandal" John was not worthy to untie.

The crucial mistake that the priests and Levites made, was to take the prophecies literally, assuming that the Messiah, would function as a political leader: either the leader of an insurrection, or as the actual King. Because prophecies like Isaiah 61 mention good news for the oppressed, and release of prisoners, the work of Messiah sounds political. It is just possible that the repenting, the re-thinking, that John was asking people to do, meant that they should give up their hope for a head of state in an independent Judaea, and refocus their attention on God's love and forgiveness. Perhaps the role of Messiah is not to be the King at all, but rather to make God's kingdom/God's reign a reality, by changing the way they related to one another, and changing their ideas about what God requires.

In other words, the role of the Messiah is to be the Key that opens the door to God's reign, to God's court, to God's household. As long as you are looking for a political leader, you will not be able to identify the Messiah. Once you change your way of thinking, once you see that love and forgiveness are the realities by which God rules, then you can identify the Messiah. As each of us is forgiven, is loved, and is accepted, so we are asked to become people who forgive others, people who love, people who accept others. We learn this new way of being from Jesus, who is our Lord and brother.

So what can we learn for ourselves today, as we reflect on Jesus as the Key of David, and on the message of John the Baptist? First, I think we need to focus on the imagery of the door, which may be shut and locked, or unlocked and open. Being locked out is an experience many of us have had at some point in our lives. When we were children, our parents may have shut us out of a room where they were wrapping Christmas presents, or working on a project, or having an argument. As adults, we may have locked our car, or our home with the keys inside, and been unable to gain entry. We may have been shut out of a decision that we wanted to participate in; and most devastating of all, we may have been shut out of a relationship. Being shut out, even temporarily, feels terrible and lonely. It is a rejection, a diminishment, a wound to the soul. It says, you are not good enough to come in.

Likewise, when we find that a door is opened to us, we rightly interpret that as acceptance, as welcome, as inclusion. Our present system of airport security gives this message very powerfully, for the door to the airplane is only opened to those who pass through the screening successfully. A door that is opened to us says, you are good enough to come in. Among the Jews of Galilee and Judea in the time of Jesus, many were not considered good enough to pass through the doors of the Temple. The reasons included matters over which people had no control, such as being born out of wedlock, having a Gentile parent or grandparent, being deformed, having a disease, and being a woman, as well as disqualifications of choice: engaging in forbidden occupations, and failing to offer the appointed sacrifices. Access to God was highly restricted, and those who were denied access, were wounded and diminished.

The ministry of Jesus was precisely to open the door to God's household, God's kingdom, in order to welcome in as many people as possible. And in order for the Jewish people of the first century to come through that door, they had to feel that they were acceptable and worthy to enter. The baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, was the experience that enabled them to feel acceptable. This leads me to the second matter for reflection: what experience will enable us to feel acceptable and worthy? Our liturgy and theology says that once we have been baptized, we are members of God's household. But I wonder if some of us are still hesitating in the doorway? Do we need forgiveness for sins we have committed since baptism? Do we have wounds inflicted by life that cause us to feel unworthy? Have we been told by others that we are unworthy? Have we assumed the cultural norm that personal worth is only measured in activity and usefulness? The message of the Gospel is, Jesus is the key, and he has opened the household of God : "Listen" he says, "I am standing at the door . . . if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you and you with me." (Rev 3:20).