In the Fullness of Time

Program Notes

In Christian theology, typology is the study of the ways in which various characters and events in the Old Testament prefigure the coming of Jesus Christ. This goes beyond mere symbolism; the idea is that "types" don't just allegorically represent the future events they refer to but actually make them present; in philosophical language, they "effect what they signify." When Scripture says that Christ comes "in the fullness of time," it doesn't simply mean that He comes when the time is right, but that all of time finds its true meaning in Him. Once hidden in types, the mystery of "the source [and] ending" of creation is now fully revealed in Jesus. I find an interesting parallel to this concept in variation writing, where the theme is present in its various permutations, hidden beneath the compositional techniques used to obscure it. This piece begins with five variations, each of which loosely reflects events in redemptive history chronicled in the Hebrew Scriptures. Not until the end is the theme - Of the Father's Love Begotten - revealed, representing that holy, eternal moment in time when "the babe, the world's Redeemer, first revealed His sacred face."

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