O Sapientia

“O Wisdom of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love:
come to teach us the path of knowledge!”
~~~
Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!

1.  O Wisdom of God

The first “O Antiphon” derives from Isaiah 11:1-3 and 28:29:

¹ There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
      and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
² And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
      the Spirit of counsel and might,
      the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
³ And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
  
28:29  Wonderful is his counsel and great is his wisdom.

Wisdom is a large concept in the Old Testament; indeed, by the time we arrive at Isaiah, canonically speaking, we will have encountered entire books devoted to this theme (notably, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach). We can summarize the Bible’s concept of wisdom in five statements:

1.  Wisdom in the Bible is that divine gift which guides God’s people on how they are to live in God’s world according to God’s created and revealed plan.

2.  Biblical wisdom derives from and builds upon the Hebrew concept of ḥokmâ, skill or competence, being good or proficient at something. The Bible employs this term to speak of the ability to perceive things from God’s perspective and then to order one’s life accordingly with skill.

3.  We arrive then at this definition: Biblical wisdom is skilled living in harmony with how God intends humans to live in his world. To be wise is to be good at the craft of life as God designed life to be lived; to depart from that path and to seek one’s own over against God’s is to be a fool.

4.  Biblical wisdom begins (and ends) with humble, moral and mental submission before God’s worthy majesty and authority, a willing surrender to living in God’s world on God’s terms. This is what the Bible means by ‘the fear of the LORD’, which is the central motif in all the Wisdom Books. Wise people are those who fear the LORD, accepting the terms by which God has determined that humans should live in his world; those who insist on defining their own terms and living by them are what the Bible calls fools. A wise person willingly accepts that “God is God and I am not”; a fool lives as though “I am god and God is not” (cf. Pss 14; 53).

5.  Biblical wisdom points to and is embodied in the personalized Wisdom of God, who is Jesus Christ. With the rest of the Old Testament, the Wisdom Books speak ultimately of God’s Son, to which, as we shall see momentarily, the New Testament responds. To pursue wisdom then is to pursue Jesus and a manner of life that reflects the character of him who lived skillfully in God’s world on God’s terms, in perfect harmony with the way God intends humans to live. This explains why, from God’s perspective, wisdom is worth everything, and is literally a life and death matter.

2.  O Jesus, the Wisdom of God

We recall what Isaiah foretells of the coming Messiah:

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
      the Spirit of counsel and might,
      the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.   (Isa 11:2-3)

Isaiah’s description echoes and accords with the conception of wisdom developed in the Wisdom Books. First, wisdom is a divine gift. Note the fourfold reference to “the Spirit of the LORD,” who bestows on the Messiah the seven gifts and, we may anticipate, on all who are recipients of the same Spirit through Baptism. These gifts are not only for Jesus, but for us as well. Second, wisdom begins and ends with “the fear of the LORD” (twice emphasized here). Third, wisdom points to and is embodied in the personalized Wisdom of God, Jesus the promised Messiah, the One envisioned in Isaiah’s prophecy.

And with this, the entire New Testament concurs. Just as wisdom was with God as a preexistent companion before the creation of the world (Prov 8:22-23; cf. Wis 6:22; Sir 24:9), so was Jesus, the eternal Word (John 1:1; 17:5). As wisdom was the agent-mediator through whom God fashioned the world (Prov 8:30-31), so was Jesus (John 1:2; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2). As wisdom teaches heavenly secrets (Job 11:6-7; cf. Wis 9:16-18), sometimes in long homilies (Prov 1:20-33; ch. 8; Wis), and shows how to walk in the way of life (Prov 2:20-22; 3:13-26; 8:32-35; cf. Sir 4:12) and immortality (cf. Wis 6:18-19), so Jesus as the revealer in the Gospels speaks in long discourses (Matt 5–7; 24–25; Jn 6; 14–16), revealing Heaven’s secrets about life and immortality.

As wisdom invites people to partake of her rich banquet, where food and drink symbolize life and communion with God (Prov 9:2-5; cf. Sir 24:19-21), so Jesus is the bread and water of life (John 6; 4). As wisdom seeks friends (Prov 1:20-21; 8:1-4; cf. Wis 6:16), so Jesus recruits followers (John 1:36-38, 43; 15:15), although the possibility remains that one might reject wisdom (Prov 1:24-25; cf. Bar 3:12) or Jesus (John 8:46; 10:25). As wisdom exposes the foolishness of the world’s ways and values (all the Wisdom Books), so Jesus displays God’s wisdom through the Crib (his humble birth in Bethlehem) and the Cross (his humble death by crucifixion; 1 Cor 1:18-30), all of which is considered foolish in the eyes of the world.

~~~
“O Wisdom of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love:
come to teach us the path of knowledge!”
~~~
Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!

3.  Prayer & Meditation

a.  To be wise is to be good at the craft of life as God designed life to be lived; to be a fool is to depart from that path and to seek one’s own over against God’s. Try to identify several areas where your thoughts, words, and/or actions reflect the former (wisdom) and several areas where the opposite (folly) might be true.

b.  Wisdom builds on the fear of the LORD, but the relationship is two-way: The more a person fears the LORD, the wiser he or she becomes; and the wiser a person becomes, the more he or she fears the LORD. How does this insight help to explain the state of the world today? What light does it shed on where you find yourself today?

c.  Here’s the good news: Jesus is the wisdom of God, the embodied fullness of divine wisdom (see 1 Cor 1:30; Col 1:15; 2:3; Rev 3:14; 5:12). This means that Jesus came not only to redeem us from our sins and to offer us eternal life, but also to make us wise in this life as we prepare for the life to come. It means that Jesus wants to make us wise like he is––being good at the craft of life as God designed life to be lived. And what’s more, the Bible explicitly tells us that “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (Jas 1:5). How does Jesus want to fulfill the O Sapientia Antiphon in your life today?

d.  Prayer: Lord, in this Antiphon we ask you to “teach us the path of knowledge” and to “teach us in her ways to go.” And please, Lord, grant us the courage, this season and throughout our lives, to walk in the path of the wisdom you teach us, and so in the way of Jesus, Your Son. Amen.

December 17