O Key of David, and Scepter of The House of Israel

O Key of David, and Scepter of the House of Israel;
What you unbar, no one locks; what you lock, no one unbars:
Come and lead the captive from the house of bondage,
The one sitting in darkness, under the shadow of death.

When we say we find the key to something, what we mean is that we found the piece makes all the pieces fit together. We found the connection between things that we knew existed, but just couldn’t quite figure out. The key to something is the connector that makes it possible to go from one set of circumstances to the next. It unlocks the way forward.

Life is full of unpleasantness. Sometimes it flows over us like a torrent—ever piling bills, the death of family and friends, turmoil in the wider the world. Sometimes the goodness of life never seems to come our way—a hoped-for day off denied by a supervisor, a rejection letter for your child to their top college of choice, a holiday spent alone. We who live in this world are surrounded by unpleasantness, and it’s merciless. We’re trapped inside its clutches and can’t lock ourselves out or lock it up.

God comes to us and shows us something different, something more. God comes and enters the unpleasantness with us—enters this world of disease, this world of death, this world of sin. But God comes holding the key to unlocking this world’s shackles. Christ proclaims to us that the way is open to us—a way open by the truth. This truth God gives us in Christ—a truth that shows us just what kind of hellish state of affairs this world is in in and where we find ourselves in, but what’s more, just how merciful God is toward us.

Christ shows us a way full of grace and truth, a way of sacrifice and love, a way that triumphs over all the unpleasantness of this life. Christ gives us a word of hope, love, and grace that can unlock the way to bearable living in this life, and to a blissful eternity in the next. He hands the keys of heaven, the keys that unlock the truth of God’s mighty mercy—a mercy that comes to us in our meekness, our insignificance, and our dispiritedness. The same keys that bar the way of evil and untruth from taking hold of our lives ever again—for even the gates of hell shall not prevail against us.

O Key of David, and Scepter of the House of Israel;
What you unbar, no one locks; what you lock, no one unbars:
Come and lead the captive from the house of bondage,
The one sitting in darkness, under the shadow of death.

Read:
Matthew 16:16-28
Romans 3:21-28

-DS