The Benedictus is the Canticle of Zechariah. It begins in the style of a traditional Jewish Berakah prayer, a blessing of God as the one who fulfils the hopes and promises of the Old Testament, for the gift of salvation bound up in the coming of the Messiah.
The second part is like a tapestry, the skilful weaving together of a whole host of biblical references principally from Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah and Malachi. It shows a spirituality of people steeped in the Scriptures and drawing together strands of promise and expectation.
It sweeps backwards: from the present to the long tradition of the prophets, the election of the house and dynasty of David, to the covenant ratified under Moses, and first announced to Abraham. And now the promises find their fulfilment.
For this is no casual or minor visitation, but a visitation that will bring to fruition all the hopes of Israel. The Benedictus is a canticle of hope, so that without fear, God's people might live under their covenant God in holiness and righteousness.
And the coming of the Messiah is what the Benedictus in its most beautiful phrase calls "the dayspring from on high". The dayspring is an image in the Bible that recalls the rising of the sun at dawn, and the recalling of the prophecy of Malachi - "the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings".
"The dayspring from on high", a heavenly dawn, a glorious new light, that will for ever dispel the darkness. Indeed "to give light to them that sit in darkness": the verb is the one from which we get the word epiphany: a light of revelation.
And the word "dayspring" - anatole in Greek is used in the Greek version of the Old Testament to render the Hebrew word "branch", which itself was a messianic title: from Jeremiah 23: ‘The days are coming when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he reign as king and execute justice and righteousness.'
So in the coming of the Messiah, light will replace the shadow of death and he, again fulfilling the hopes of the Old Testament, will ‘guide our feet into the way of peace'. As Christmas now comes, may the peace of the Christ Child ever be yours.
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