“let the clouds. Rain down the Just One;
Let the earth be opened and bring forth a Saviour.”
The liturgy of the Fourth Sunday of Advent “fills us with joy.” It is like the vigil for a feast, because the times are 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, where Mary brings her child into the world. But 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; as our opening prayer says: “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…….”
This is what happens each time we receive The Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist: “In this sacrament we receive the promise of salvation; as Christmas draws near, it makes us. [even more] grow in faith and love to celebrate the coming of Christ our Saviour.”
Such is 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, at the end of time. 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. We await his return in glory: he has come, he comes, he will come: The prayers over the gifts today merit some attention: “May the Holy Spirit, O Lord, sanctify these gifts laid upon your altar, just as he filled with his power the womb of the Blessed `Virgin Mary” Perhaps we don’t think enough about the essential role of the Spirit and its invocation (epiclesis) in the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer. Today we should be very aware of the Spirits’ work. It is through the Holy Spirit that the bread and wine become, sacramentally, the Body and Blood of Christ, just as it was by the Spirit that the Virgin Mary gave flesh to the Son of God and enabled him to be born at Bethlehem.
The liturgy today focuses on the prophecy that the Christian tradition has understood as an announcement of the birth of the Saviour. In the first reading from the Book of Isaiah we read the passage: “…. The maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call Emmanuel which means ‘God-is-with-us.”’ The sign that God gives to Ahaz is the birth of a child. It is a sign, because this birth is much more than an ordinary birth, this birth is a promise of salvation. Moreover, he will bear the significant name Emmanuel — “God-with-us.” We are told that this child, the sign of the Salvation of God, will be no ordinary person, and he will come from David’s lineage. He will be the Messiah himself. When Jesus appeared, born of a woman—a virgin whose name was Mary—to whom the angel of God said: “You shall conceive and bear a son…. the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father……and his reign will be without end.” One can easily surmise that he must be the promised Emmanuel. Not merely a sign among many, but THE SIGN of God, in a way that no-one can imagine: “God with us.” He is the one the Church prepares to receive anew in the sacrament, the sign of the liturgy, whose coming the Church implores and whose salvation it fervently awaits. As Saint Paul tells us “Whatever promises God has made have been fulfilled in him [Jesus]……” His double sonship has been affirmed, “…… descended from David according to the flesh, but was made Son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness…..” Note the Trinitarian character of this confession of faith that names the Father [God], the Son, and the Spirit. It would be difficult to find a better formulation for the solemn proclamation of the mystery of the incarnation.
The very ancient profession of faith read in the Epistle to the Romans, gives witness and proclaims Jesus is “son of David.” Matthew highlights the title in the first verse of his Gospel (Matt 1:6) in the genealogy that comes all the way to “Joseph the husband of Mary. It was of her that Jesus who is called the Messiah was born.” Immediately following this, the evangelist tells us how the Davidic sonship fell to Joseph, while — as readers of the Gospel know — Mary, to whom he was engaged, “was found with child through the power of the Holy Spirit…. before they lived together.” Mary’s virginal conception of Jesus is the fruit of an unprecedented initiative of God, an initiative that God alone enjoys, which he reveals to those whom he pleases. Joseph was “an upright man.” How could he interfere and press his claim for Mary his fiancée to be his wife, she who was already “with child through the power of the Holy Spirit”? Facing such a mystery, must he not, rather, retreat quietly and secretly leaving God alone to pursue the plan for which he had chosen Mary? Such is the attitude of “the upright man” according to Matthew: he abandons himself to providence.
Joseph, having thus unconditionally abandoned his prerogatives, and thinking only of retreating before the mystery in which he assumes he has no part, receives a revelation from God. “In a dream” — in a vision — an angel appears and say to him: “Joseph, son of David, have no fear about taking Mary as your wife, for it is certainly by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived this child; but she is to have a son and you are to name him Jesus.”
We have spoken, appropriately, of the announcement to Joseph. This was not so much to explain to him about Mary’s virginal conception but rather to reveal to Joseph what his mission was to be. As for the conception, it is extraordinary; it is a mystery, and Joseph understood this. He, the “son of David,” far from retiring from the scene, must take Mary into his home. Joseph’s acceptance of this situation and the role given him by God brings to an end the genealogy of “Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.”
Like Mary, Joseph believed in God, who sent his angel to him. He agreed to what was asked of him. He was completely submissive, as an “upright man,” to the divine initiative. “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had directed him and received her into his home as his wife.”
Advent celebrates the fidelity and constancy of God in the accomplishment of his eternal plan: the institution of the kingdom that the Lord’s return will inaugurate and bring to its full definitive manifestation. But this coming involves an earthly and historical phase—in the formal and modern sense of the term— which is not merely important but decisive for us and, in some way, for God himself.
It is decisive for us because it is within history that salvation comes to us, that we have the responsibility of freely accepting or refusing its grace, that we are called, personally and collectively, to take an active part in the coming of the reign of God.
For God, because — if one can speak in this way — he is personally and totally involved in this project he has begun and, without interruption, will guide towards its end. He has sent to our earth his only Son, “a man like us in all things but sin,” whom he did not spare the supreme test of death, a death freely confronted in order to bring his mission to its end. It is he who, after the resurrection gives us his Spirit to continue the work of universal redemption. Who would have imagined that God would go so far, that he would implicate himself in the history and destiny of humanity?
Everything belongs to the Lord: “the earth and it’s fullness; the world and those who dwell in it.” No-one can “ascend the mountain of the Lord.” “He whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean” is the one who receives sanctity from on high. So “The race that seeks for him, that seeks the face of God” cries out in a shout of faith and hope: “Let the Lord enter, he is the king of glory.”
Joseph, to whom “Mary, the mother of Jesus, was engaged” is the full model of the “upright man” who, not without an interior struggle when faced with the incomprehensible unexpectedness of the situation, remains open to what is revealed to him, that he may enter humbly and resolutely into the plans of God. His first reaction, as we have seen, to this mysterious conception is to distance himself from it. But God reveals to him that he has a mission to fulfil with regard to this child who will be called “Jesus, which means, ‘God saves’” and who will be the mysterious “Emmanuel” announced by an ancient prophecy. It is enough, he responds to this “annunciation” without hesitation, without posing any questions, and without the least delay. From astonishment to faith and submission of one’s life by the reception of the word, extraordinary as it may be — this is the path for all believers and the Church itself to follow to respond to the call of God and his word.
Extended “to all the Gentiles’ this is good news promised by the prophets: it concerns the Son born of the house of David, established in the power of the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead—Jesus Christ— Our Lord.
“The Virgin will conceive and bear a son and they will call him Emmanuel.”
“Come Lord Jesus: Come.”
