O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel,
qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperuit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Key of David, O royal Power of Israel,
controlling at your will the gate of heaven:
Come, break down the prison walls of death
for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death;
and lead your captive people into freedom.
From the Lectionary Cycle:
Clavis David, qui aperis portas aeterni Regni:
veni et educ vinctum de domo carceris sedentem in tenebris.
O Key of David,
opening the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom:
come and free the prisoners of darkness!
Veni, Clavis Davidica, regna reclude caelica,
fac iter tutum superum, et claude vias inferum.
O Come, Thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heav’nly home,
make safe the way that leads on high,
that we no more have cause to sigh.
Today the Church calls to mind the name of Christ as O Clavis David; The Key of David. We call to mind that we as a people are bound by our sins, that we are in a sense chained and locked with the weight of them, and even though we try sometimes to escape from their grasp, they still manage to hold us tight.
Today the church says, look! Here is the Key of David, Here is Christ a descendent of David,the key to our freedom. Christ comes into this world, that has been ridden by sin and the stain of evil and death, and unlocks the gates, and chains. He comes to free us of our sin and open the gates to Eternal Life. Christ is here; he our victorious king who has come to wage war on sin and open for us the gates of Heaven. He humbles himself into human estate, being born in the likeness of man, all so that he may have himself beaten and hung on a cross to die, for a people who still don’t show him the love and honor he deserves.
The Church today also remembers when Christ gives the keys to the kingdom of Heaven and Earth to Peter and in so doing, gives to him and all of the future priests the power to forgive sins in his name. “Whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you lose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven.”
Christ comes as the meekest, and most vulnerable of all. He comes to us as a baby, born in a stable. Though at the time his mother and foster father did not know what was all to come for this baby, they loved him and protected him and gave him everything they could. Christ the Key of David, came to this world as the only thing that most humans would let in to their hearts, he came as a baby. A baby that was the key to healing a generation long hurt by the wages of sin, a baby that was the key to our salvation, a baby called O Clavis David, a baby called Christ.
Scriptural References for O Clavis David:
Revelation 3:7
Isaiah 22:22
Luke 1:79
Walking The Way of Beauty 