Readings for the fourth Sunday of Advent (Isaiah 7, Romans 1, and Matthew 1) give us many rich texts to contemplate in this, the final week of our approach to the Nativity of Our Lord.
We begin with the prophecy of Isaiah, "The Lord himself will give you a sign: Look, a virgin is with child, and shall bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel." Emmanuel, as we all know, means "God with us." This is the core theme of the Christian religion: God with us, God taking on our humanity, entering our world, and in his life, death, and resurrection, showing us the true nature and destiny of the human race. And we respond to God's taking our humanity into himself, by opening ourselves to him in repentance, prayer, and worship. Especially we participate in eucharistic worship, in which God effects our transformation, our transfiguration, into the humanity which he wishes us to be, so that, as the Second Letter of Peter says, we "may become partakers of the divine nature." This is our high destiny, which we prepare for during Advent, and which we celebrate at Nativity, when our Savior, who is both divine and human, comes into our world.
Today's reading from the opening verses of Paul's Letter to the Romans, reads like a credal statement, a summary of what may be called the Gospel, the Good News, according to Paul.
Paul presents his own experience as part of his Gospel: first he says that he is set apart for the Good News of God, and then goes on to say what that Gospel is: the good news concerning God's Son. This reading from Romans is actually one long sentence. Paul packs a lot into this sentence, a summary of the good news as he has received it: Jesus is descended from David in the flesh and is Son of God by the Spirit. Jesus rose from the dead. Paul received grace from the Son of God to offer faith in Jesus to the Gentiles.
Matthew presents what he knows about the birth of the Messiah. This story could actually be called "The Annunciation to Joseph." We all know the Annunciation in Luke's Gospel, in which the angel Gabriel announces to Mary the approaching birth of Jesus. Angels are very important in Luke's Gospel, and they are also important in Matthew's Gospel, but there they appear to Joseph. And Mary doesn't do any talking in Matthew's narrative; all the initiative is with Joseph and the angels. Luke, of course, balances the male-centered story of Matthew, with a story in which women are the main actors. The sequence in Matthew's narrative is interesting. Mary is found to be pregnant "by the Holy Spirit" before she and Joseph live together. We can imagine what Joseph thinks of this when he first hears it. Joseph plans to "dismiss her quietly," as the text says.
The prophecy of Isaiah reappears here: "Emmanuel, God with us." Even in the extremity of a potentially humiliating situation for both Mary and Joseph, God is with them. That is why Matthew is careful to say at the beginning of his reading, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ, the expected King and Deliverer of the Hebrews from foreigners, the Romans. The people expect a strong and glorious earthly king, who will deliver them from the oppressors and rule a great kingdom. He is to be a descendant of David, who will bring the whole world under his sway. The people of Israel have been looking for this deliverer from the time of their captivity in Babylon, and are even more eager for a deliverer from their oppression under the Romans.
But the Messiah, in Matthew's Gospel, although he is of the House of David, is not strong and glorious in earthly terms. No, he is a baby born to an obscure couple, to a woman whose pregnancy, in the eyes of most people, would be at best questionable, and the fatherhood of the child unknown or unbelievable. Our text says, however, that Joseph was a just man, so he did not react in a way that we might expect. Into this doubtful situation the Messiah is born, quite unlike the grand expectation that many people had, and have, of what a deliverer, a Messiah, is supposed to look like.
The very ordinariness, the improbability of the situation, are clues to what God is revealing to us here. Our deliverance, our salvation, are not to be found in grand world-changing schemes. Our salvation is in the local, the particular, the ordinary, the very human world around us. God chose poor, unknown people in a backwater corner of the Roman empire, put them into a situation in which they could rely only on Him, and they responded with faith. They took what God gave them in the situations in which they found themselves, and did what God asked them to do. With faith and courage they gave up conventional understanding, in this case the usual view of a suspicious pregnancy, and allowed God to lead them to a new understanding. And we are here today as a consequence of their willingness to open themselves up to a new awareness of God working in them and in the world.
Likewise, we too are being given an opportunity by God, this Nativity and always, to open ourselves to the new situation which he has promised us: Emmanuel, God With Us, our true destiny, transformation into the people God wishes us to be.
In nomine etc..
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