O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.
O King of the nations, and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay.
Now we get a clue as to the ultimate name for our Saviour. Here is a king indeed.
Isaiah had prophesied:
‘For a child has been born for us, a son given us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ (Isaiah 9:6)
and
‘He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.’ (Isaiah 2:4)
But this is a king with a difference. He isn’t aloof, seated on a throne and completely unreachable. This is a king who engages fully with the human race. At the beginning of creation humans are formed out of the dust of the earth, or clay; we are shaped but we still have the capacity for choice.
‘But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand’ (Isaiah 64:8)
