Advent Sunday IV – Year A
Isaiah 7:10-14 Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-24
Just as so many children, and more than a few adults, are too impatient to wait to open their gifts on Christmas morning, so, too, the Church’s liturgical season seems to be impatient to announce the Incarnation and Nativity of Our Lord on the Solemn Feast of the Nativity. The 4th Sunday of Advent becomes a springboard, announcing the Gospel event in terms of both Old and New Testament.
Among Isaiah’s most famous prophetic utterances is today’s text, originally exhorting an anxious and frightened King Ahaz of Judah (reigned ca. 735-715 BC) to have unshaken confidence in God in the face of disaster in the neighboring northern Kingdom of Israel. Isaiah asked Ahaz to request a sign from God by which to demonstrate divine fidelity. Ahaz declined (virtuously at first glance) so as to “not tempt the Lord!” Isaiah appreciated his respectful hesitancy, but appreciated it more as weakness and fragility, so he predicted the birth of a child by a young woman (Ahaz’s wife) as a divine sign. The name Isaiah bestowed upon the child was the metaphor, Emmanuel, meaning “God IS with us!” Thus, would a royal heir’s birth be a “sign” to the king that God’s power was present. Christians will later reinterpret the prophetic dialogue and apply it to the birth of Jesus, who according to the Christian sense of God’s power and presence, was and is himself the very real presence of God. Hence, Emmanuel became for Christians yet another title for Jesus the messiah and savior.
Today’s Gospel text from Matthew refers back to that Isaiah text just proclaimed. Matthew’s infancy narratives about Jesus’ birth are different from Luke’s narratives in that Luke tells the story from Mary’s perspective, while Matthew uses Joseph’s perspective. Joseph has no “speaking parts” in the Gospel narratives (Mary speaks in only four scenes). But, he is remarkably and crucially attentive to God’s angelic messages, by which he repeatedly “saves” both Mary and Jesus from various dangers. His Old Testament namesake, Joseph the Patriarch, had saved his eleven brothers and their families and retinues back when they and their father, Jacob (aka Israel) the Patriarch sought refuge from a famine by moving to Egypt. Theirs was the story of how the ancient Israelites finally arrived in Egypt for the eventual story of their salvation by Moses. So, the Old Testament “Joseph” and the New Testament “Joseph” are both “saviors” of sorts in the divine process of repeatedly saving God’s people. Joseph the Patriarch saved the people from starvation (with no little amount of humor and mischief!), and Joseph the Foster Father of Jesus saved Mary from tremendous social embarrassment (pregnancy before the wedding), and the newborn babe from the violence of a paranoid King Herod (called “The Great!”). Both Josephs found saving refuge for their families in Egypt.
The second reading today is the very beginning of Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome. He wrote in hope of eventually visiting them. However, his former reputation as a persecutor of the Church still circulated, even decades after his conversion to the Gospel faith. He wrote also to establish his credentials as a genuine Christian so that he might find a welcome in the center of the Roman Empire. The first very long sentence of the reading describes Jesus first as a “promise” of the prophets and scriptures. Next he is acclaimed a descendent from (King) David “according to the flesh” so as to assert Jesus’ royal Jewish lineage. And finally, he is the “Son of God” in terms of divine power and holiness. So, Paul has painted a Christological picture of Jesus as spiritual messiah and son of God.
Today’s liturgical festival anticipates of the Solemn Feast of the Nativity on Friday evening and Saturday next. Those who observe Christmas more as a feast of socializing and gift-giving will intensify their somewhat frenzied efforts during this coming week. As maddening as that is to some, it is really an entertaining moment for believers who more deliberately choose to slow down and reflect upon the ancient Jewish hope for God’s presence, and the scriptural and liturgical remembering of the humble and touching events by which the power of God was made present to the universe in Jesus the Savior. Let the others knock themselves out as they may; let us hear the promise and hope that the Savior is near!
We move towards the end of Advent and the Vigil of the Nativity with Paul’s greeting-prayer to the Roman Christians, “Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”