‘Let clouds rain down the Just One, Let the earth be opened and bring forth a Saviour.’ This, today, is our prayer in the entrance antiphon. The Liturgy of the Fourth Sunday of Advent ‘fills us with joy.’ It is like a vigil for a feast, because the times are almost fulfilled: ‘The Virgin is with child and shall bear a son, and she will call him Emmanuel.’ This celebration unfolds with our eyes fixed on the manger at Bethlehem where Mary will bring her child into the world —and later it will change, to a second coming at the end of time. One cannot lose sight of the fact that this birth is but the first step to Easter, and that its ultimate importance lies in the mystery of salvation in which we share. ‘Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of his Resurrection,’ So says our opening prayer.
This is exactly what happens each time we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. ‘Having received this pledge of eternal redemption, we pray, Almighty God, that, as the feast day of our salvation draws ever nearer, so we may press forward all the more eagerly to the worthy celebration of the mystery of your Son’s Nativity.’ (Post Communion prayer) Such is the liturgy. It always celebrates the whole of the indivisible mystery, even when it seems to be dealing with only one of its facets. Even when it focuses on one of the particular stages — like today — it is oriented toward the final stage, to the end of time. ‘In his love Christ has filled us with joy, as we prepare to celebrate his birth, so that when he comes he may find us watching in prayer, our hearts filled with wonder and praise’ (Preface 17th-24th). Vigilance in prayer, and joy in preparing to celebrate the nativity of the Lord in our flesh, are fundamental attitudes of the Christian, and the Church, as is waiting for his return in glory: he has come, he comes, he will come.
The Liturgy of the Word opens with the proclamation of a well known oracle of the prophet Micah: ‘You, O Bethlehem-Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.’ It is true that we often remember only this first sentence. But, here,‘Eight centuries before Christ, a prophet clearly announced that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.’ We may also note that ‘All the Chief Priests and the Scribes of the people’ clearly and without hesitation cited this oracle when King Herod asked them where the Messiah was to be born. Having received this information, the King sent the Magi to Bethlehem. Afterward, deceived by the Magi, who had not returned to tell him what they had found, he, ‘ordered the massacre of all the boys two years old and under in Bethlehem and its environs.’ (Matt 2:1-8) Such a reading of this prophecy cannot be fully satisfactory. On the one hand, it is limited to the first verse, as if the others were just oratorical extensions of it. With this mindset, one tends to go quickly to the end of the text, content with just the symbolic sense of the shepherd and peace.
On the other hand, when looking at Matthews account (2:4-5) it is important to consider the story of the manifestation of the Magi in particular, and the use of ancient prophecies in the first two chapters and in the rest of the Gospel. Matthew insists that the prophecies have been fulfilled by Jesus. He interprets the major events of Jesus’ life by appealing to ‘fulfilment of the prophecies.’ This fact invites a closer, more exact, more fruitful reading of the prophecy of Micah: only then will be discovered the reason why it has been retained in the liturgy for this Sunday. It is the announcement of a coming — an Advent. This announcement, which sustained the hopes of believers in the Old Testament, still fires our hope and our expectation today. The Lord has come, certainly; but must come again. Between the two advents is the time for hope. Of vigilance, the quality of which conditions us for our complete liberation.
Micah’s prophecy: is this not a simple prophecy, that we read in a self satisfied way because we know that Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem? It is not merely a ‘scriptural argument’ in defence of the justification of our faith. Rather, these words of scripture sustain our hope and determine our expectation of the ‘not yet’ of the Lord’s full manifestation. This ancient oracle still retains all its power. Even now, it affects the Advent experienced by the community of believers, and strengthens the fruitfulness of our vigil. Micah’s prophecy, influenced by the imagery established in the Book of Ezekiel (34), also announces a shepherd. Jesus will make use of this image in proclaiming himself to be the true Shepherd: ‘He shall stand firm,’ with the attitude of a judge. His authority comes in ‘the strength of the Lord’ and he will act ‘in the majestic name of the Lord his God.’ Moreover, ‘his origin is from old, from ancient times.’ He has been chosen from all eternity to lead his flock. He will allow it to live in security because he himself is peace. ‘Now his greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth.’ And at Bethlehem he will be born into this world. ‘She who gives birth’ recalls Isaiah’s prophecy; and that which is proclaimed at the Midnight Mass at Christmas: ‘For today there is a child born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders.’ (9:5-6)
If one remembers the angels salutation to Mary (Lk 1:31-32), and even more the ‘Magnificat’ (Lk 1:47-55), or the ‘Benedictus’ (Lk 1:68-79), one can see that the Christian community has taken Micah’s prophecy to be an oracle of today — for today. The liturgy of the Vigil for Christmas understands this well.The Church, upon studying this prophecy, understands it as words of both hope and warning. Who the prophet announced has been born. He has ‘come out’ of Bethlehem, the Shepherd who is ‘peace on earth to those on whom his favour rests.’ And yet, ‘All creation groans and is in agony until even now,’ (Rom 8;22) while the signs that precede the end are evoked as ‘the early stages of birth pangs.’ This is why, after proclaiming Micah’s prophecy, the liturgy suddenly focuses on the one who has come — the ‘now’ and the one who must come — the ‘not yet.’
After the annunciation to Mary that she was the one who would conceive and bear a son and who must be named ‘Emmanuel’ [God with us] the angel told her of her cousin Elizabeth, who was also with child, so ‘Mary set out and went with haste to a town in the hill country of Judah’ to visit Elizabeth. It seems to give the impression that Mary made a hasty departure from the scene of the annunciation. But the angel had given a sign: it was an implicit invitation to go — not to verify, but to experience first hand this astonishing event. Mary’s haste does not necessarily refer to the swiftness of her journey but, in biblical style, rather, to the interior disposition that makes one act with fervour and zeal. Luke does not tell us whether Mary upon entering Elizabeths house, greeted her cousin with the customary ‘Shalom’ or, perhaps having pondered during her journey about what the angel had told her, with something akin to ‘Rejoice’ or ‘Let us rejoice.’ We do not know. We can assume however, that Mary’s voice must have betrayed something extraordinary, causing Elizabeth to be moved by the joy and peace, and grace that lit up her young cousins face. In any case, at this first moment — Luke insists on this point — Elizabeth perceived that she was in the presence of a great mystery, that Mary bore salvation in her, and that her own joyous greeting was announcing the divine presence: ‘Why is this granted to me? That the Mother of my Lord should come to me. Behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leapt for joy.’ Now, all pregnant women feel the movements in their womb and are aware of life within them. But Luke uses a verb that implies a certain astonishing power and strength: ‘To bounce,’ ‘to leap,’ ‘to dance.’ Not merely ‘to stir’ or ‘to move.’ Then Luke says— that Elizabeth ‘filled with the Holy Spirit, was moved to prophecy’ and cried out in a loud voice proclaiming the blessedness of Mary: ‘Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’ Elizabeth’s exclamation has become familiar to Christians throughout time, who continue to extol it from one generation to the next. ‘Blessed are you’ an exclusively religious turn of phrase, frequently found in the bible. ‘Blessed’ is Mary, in an incomparable manner, she whom the angel greeted and called ‘privileged’ and ‘highly favoured’ as no other creature — ‘full of grace.’ Mary is moved by the intense emotions of these wondrous events — her joy — and above all her enthusiasm of faith responds to Elizabeth and then bursts forth the ‘Magnificat’ —’My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…….’ It is because of her son and by reason of her faith in the word that the Virgin is elevated to such joyous and wondrous blessedness. Elizabeth’s outburst culminates in prophetically giving Mary the title ‘Mother of my Lord.’ In the Old Testament the term ‘Lord’ designates the Messiah. The council of Ephesus (431) will define it and make its meaning forever sacred by solemnly proclaiming Mary ‘Mother of God’ (Theotokos) not as a completely new title but as the proper understanding of the given revelation, the meaning of which the Christian people have never hesitated to believe. She is — the Image — the Icon — of the Church, ransomed by obedience to the Son of God made man and his perfect fulfilment of the Father’s will.
Obedience to God is not simply a moral virtue, it is not merely servile behaviour either, rather, it is the highest road — a mystical one — to holiness that will transform us and divinise us. This union with God is the vocation of all men and women who come into the world. But as close to God as one can get — whether ‘highly favoured’ i.e. free from all sin like the Virgin Mary — there will always be a gulf — an abyss — beyond which is found the Holy One. Whatever the path travelled, no creature can be elevated to the transcendence of God. Christ travelled a reverse path. He was near to God [was God]: He received the body of a man that moved according to the rhythms of the human heart. He handed over his body on the cross, consecrating his heart to the fulfilment of the Father’s plan. ‘I have come to do your will O God’, this declaration must be taken in the strongest sense. Divine and human will, are indissolubly united in the person of Christ, man and God. In him, in his humanity, all humanity is sanctified. In a single stroke he has obtained for all people, for all time, the remission of sins that traditional acts of worship had sought to obtain. Like the Son of God and because of him, who made to the Father an offering of his body, we are able to offer sacrifice that is pleasing to God, being truly consecrated and united to the Father ‘Through him, with him, and in him.’
Our liturgical time now intensifies one of the most dynamic components of believers and the Church: the reaching out in faith and hope to the coming of the Lord. He has come, and Christmas celebrates that coming. He has proclaimed and instituted a Kingdom — we now live in faith and hope for the total fulfilment of the promises at the end of time — Christ is the guarantor of our hope. In him we are sanctified, through him we can offer to God new worship; with him we have access to the presence of the Father — all because of the obedience of the Son made man. At this liturgy we pray:
‘Maranatha — Come Lord Jesus come.’
