Today's message: 4th Sunday of Advent A

Isaiah 7: 10-14; Romans 1: 1-7; Matthew 1: 18-24

Have I said ‘Yes’ to God’s plan for the world?  Do I really know what this means?  It doesn’t take long to realize that I cannot live forever nor can anyone else.  I have watched people die.  I watch loved ones, special people who have touched me, die.  I have seen not so nice people who have hurt others die.  I know that death is not the end, because it doesn’t make sense if everything just ends.  I writing this blog because I know that there is life after death and that life centers on God.  God has planned it this way from the beginning.  I don’t have a choice in this, it is the way it is, which means:  this is God’s plan for all eternity.  Can I understand God’s plan?  A total understanding or even a partial understanding…I don’t think so.  But I can get glimpses of God’s plan in my life.  Why has God surrounded me with beautiful people of love?  Is this an accident…No!  Love just does not come from nowhere.  Love has a source.  The only source that makes sense is God.  If love comes from God, then love has to be involved in God’s eternal plan.  It does; God is love.  God loves me.  I say and am convinced that God loves me just the way I am right now:  with all my flaws and all my sins…with my gifts, talents, and non-gifts and non-abilities.  Why does God do this…because God created me?  God can only love and therefore loves everyone and every part of His creation.  If God loves, and He does, He wants His love perpetuated.  That is where I come in and every person.  God needs all to experience His love; to treasure His love; to share His love; to be love so that people know that God is love.  This is God’s plan for the world.  I am part of this plan as is everyone reading this blog and everyone everywhere from time past and forever.  Can I see in this Christmas feast the depth and reality of God’s love?  It is a beautiful plan, it is God’s plan, God’s plan for the world. 

In today’s first reading Isaiah the prophet and Ahaz, the king of Judah face a menacing future: a military attack is threatened against Jerusalem and its defenses.  Ahaz has gone out to secure the water supply in case of an attack.  Isaiah tells the King to also keep safe his kingdom’s relationship with God.  So Isaiah invites the king to choose any sign that will convince him of God’s love and protection.  Isaiah wants him to trust that the attack he fears will never happen.  The king is in disbelief and has his own plans. Isaiah reproaches the king for his lack of faith.  Isaiah said that God is going to give a sign:  a virgin will conceive and bear a son who will be given the name Emmanuel, meaning God is with us.’  Imagine the king in all his glory surrounded by trained soldiers wanting to believe such a thing.  This certainly can’t save the people.  Is the king looking at this life or at eternal life?  Is the king interested in God’s plan for the world, a plan that will bring all people under God’s rule and be fulfilled in God’s eternal kingdom of love?  No,…he is afraid and looking out for himself. I too can so easily get caught up in my little world and feel the ‘poor me’s’ when things don’t go my way…when I have ‘painted myself in a corner’…when I have much  more fear than hope…when I feel I’m lost?  Do I even want to hear about God’s plan of love for the world and love forever eternally in God’s kingdom? 

Paul begins his letter to the Romans rejoicing that God has set him apart to announce God’s plan in its completeness.  Both Paul and Matthew make it very clear that Jesus came from the line of David.  David is one of the greatest figures in the Old Testament.  He succeeded Saul as king.  He united all the scattered tribes and formed them into a nation.  And the Messiah, the savior, the promised deliverer would come from David’s lineage. Messiah means anointed one.  The Jewish nation expected the messiah would save them.  Paul adds depth to this by saying that the Messiah will save all…God’s plan includes all peoples.  All are called to belong to Jesus Christ.  All are called to be holy.  All are called to be people of love, all the time,  everyone.  Jesus will save people from their slavery to sin—slavery to selfish desires, slavery to hurting, and show everyone that dignity that we have received as children of God.  Jesus, God, came to show us that each person has a human dignity and a human identity—love.  This is the meaning of Christmas.  God’s Son came to show us we are nobody’s no longer.  The angels announce this to the shepherds:  “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.  For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.  And this will a sign for you:  you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”  (Luke 2: 10-12)  Paul knows that God’s grace embraces all peoples and all nations.  We are all special and important.  We are all loved.  Can I act as if I’m loved? 

Mathew emphasizes a small but very significant part that Joseph plays in Jesus’ birth. He is ignorant of God’s plan of love for the world.  The plan unfolds as a shock:  Mary is betrothed, engaged to Joesph but she is not pregnant by him.  Legally this would be considered adultery, a very serious crime and one possibly receiving the death penalty.  No one knows the story yet.  Joseph with compassion for Mary, handles the situation, quietly.  Joseph wrestled with this…trying to understand the prophecies.  In his weakness, he is strong.  In his uncertainty, he is devoted in his faith of God.  Many important concepts have come to light:

• “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard” (Luke 1:13)
• “Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God.’  (Luke1: 30)
• “And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” (Luke 1: 36)

Where is this leading us?  What is God’s message?  How am I to respond?  It takes my YES and everyone’s YES to those who are hurting, those who need healing, those who need understanding, compassion, love and care.  This is loving as I am loved.  Can I do it?   St. Teresa of Avila’s  beautiful quote sums up a role each of us is called to live…we have no choice…the kingdom of eternal love demands this for entrance: “Christ has no body now but yours; no hands, no feet on earth but yours.  Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassionately on this world.  Yours are the feet with which He  walks to do good.  Yours are the hands through which He bears all the world.  Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are His Body.  Christ has no Body now on earth but yours.”

Sacred Space 2020 states:

“Hearing the words to Joseph about Mary’s child, we would first think of a special child, in the sense of ‘made over’ to the Lord, as Samuel or Samson was.  But reading between the lines, taking into account the scriptural allusions, we find that this child is much more.  His coming ushers in a whole new (although promised) heaven- and earth-shaking epoch in the relationship between God and His people.  The child will save His people from their sins—but not only from individual sins.  They will be saved from the sins of the people, which includes the oppression into which their sins have brought them.

“It’s the same for us:  we are saved from individual sins but also from sins that are communal and systemic.  I consider the communal sins in my city and my country and thank God today for our salvation brought through Jesus.”