Vigils Reading

O KEY OF DAVID

From a sermon by St Odilo of Cluny

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The testimony of the ancient prophets to Christ’s eternal being and his

boundless divine presence is indeed trustworthy and true, and is confirmed by the

resounding call of that inspired heavenly trumpet: Jesus Christ, yesterday and today,

the same for ever. Our Savior himself tells the Jews in the gospel: Before Abraham

ever existed, I am. With God the Father from all eternity, before Abraham existed

(more accurately, before anything existed,) he had his eternal being; and yet he chose

to be born in time from the stock of Abraham — Abraham who was told by God the

Father: In your posterity all the peoples of the earth will be blessed.

The blessed patriarch David was also granted the sublime privilege of a

similar promise. Revealing to him the hidden secrets of his wisdom, God the Father

told him: The fruits of your body I will set upon your throne.

These two received the promise of the Savior’s coming more plainly than any

of our other forebears, and so they deserved to be given the first and most important

place in the records of our Lord’s ancestry according to the evangelist, Matthew, the

opening words of whose gospel are: The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of

David, the son of Abraham. With these sacred words of the evangelist both the

prophetic oracles and the apostolic preaching are in accord. It is evident that when

the prophet Isaiah said in the person of God the Father: And so, Israel my servant,

Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend in whom I took

possession of you, his message was that the mediator between God and humankind

would be born according to the flesh from the stock of Abraham.13

The man in the Gospel who was freed from the darkness of ignorance and

enlightened by faith addressed God’s Son as Son of David. Not only did he receive

spiritual insight, but he also deserved to have his bodily sight restored. Christ the

Lord desires to be called by this name, knowing that there is no other name by which

the world can be saved. And if we ourselves wish to be saved by him who is the one

and only Savior, each of us must also say to him: Lord, son of David, have mercy on

me.