Isaiah 7:10-14; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24
Mary’s FIAT: The Power of Obedience and the Fruit of Co-operation with God
Well, on this fourth Sunday of Advent, God shows himself a God who answers his people with promptitude. When the Assyrian army rose against Israel, which is the context of our first reading, God took the initiative to go and discuss with the king, Ahaz, and to give him a guarantee that the battle was the Lord’s to fight not his. This is Isaiah’s understanding of salvation – God rises to the occasion, when his children are threatened, a ready-to-go God. The invisible God, who was always there with his people in different forms, promises to make himself visible by taking a human nature to be born as a man, in order to save his people. Can you begin to fathom the closeness God wants with human beings? This is a new dawn in Jewish theology – a visible God, who comes to his people as a Saviour. Yes, that is our God, the Lord of hosts, the Lord who fights battles for his people. However, the physical fight against Assyrians will change to a spiritual fight against sin in Matthew’s gospel – he will save his people from their sins – our combat is spiritual, not physical!
Despite the refusal of King Ahaz to ask for a sign from God, as the prophet Isaiah requested of him, in the first reading, God himself went ahead to make a promise of a coming God-man to Israel. This God-man will bring salvation to human beings by being one like themselves. If there is a link between the first reading and the gospel it is the lesson in preparation for the coming of the Saviour. This is to say that God-man has both a history and a lesson. Both readings, first and gospel readings, tell us that there were centuries gone by before the realization of God’s promise. This period of waiting for the realization of God’s promise, documented in the Old Testament, is the historical aspect of the coming of the Saviour. The “lesson” aspect is that salvation is prepared for humanly, in a physical way and in a material body; the New Testament makes this evident.
The reason why we need to emphasize the historical part of human salvation, especially in the twenty-first century, is the attack of secularism against Christianity. Every thing divine and religious is being thrown out of public square and space; it is not worth talking about and believing in, modern culture argues. Even religious symbols are threats to a secularist culture, although secularism does not have any qualms offending religious sentiments and feelings, but vehemently opposes the contrary scenario. In a period like this, history can teach us something beyond secularism, science and technology. In fact, that is why we need to celebrate Christmas with pomp and pageantry! We need to let the world understand that there is a different narrative to the circle of violence and disunity plaguing humanity; we need to show that there is another basis for unity in our common humanity and joint fight against sin and evil.
Today, human beings go to harmony.com, ancestry.com and many other websites in search of their history and relationships. They totally believe what is written in there, disregarding the many who have trusted to their regrets. Fourth Sunday of Advent convinces us that Christianity is not a sham or concocted story with no basis in reality. The genealogy of Jesus Christ, in today’s gospel, grounds him in human history. The same genealogy puts God’s imprint on creation beyond myth to reality. If the creation account of Genesis is called a myth, the birth of Jesus is a scientific fact, verifiable in history and archeology. Beyond that, it also grounds human destiny within the plans of God for his sons and daughters, a point St. Paul underscores in the second reading today. Before we go to Paul, let us talk more about the importance of genealogy.
Names have importance, so are personalities in history, because God works through them to bring about his purposes, just as God continues to write history through women and men of today, so that no generation is deprived of divine presence and activity. You and I are the actors and architects of God on the planet earth. In the past, according to the genealogy of our gospel reading, God used Mary, Joseph, David and so on to accomplish the coming of the Messiah, his Son, into the world. If for no other reason, God seeks and needs human cooperation to bring about his will and design today.
Divine or religious history, then, becomes first steps in human participation in divine plan because mundane time and divine time intersect and nourish each other. This means that human beings, secular or religious, are building blocks for God’s design; there is neither secular nor religious people, there is only sons and daughters of God, who are leaving behind them different imprints, for or against God, through the choices they make and the activities they engage in. Yes, there is only free children of God, on the planet earth.
Our gospel takes our first reading a step higher: the remonstration of King Ahaz was turned into obedience by Mary. Mary’s FIAT (may it be done) to God’s plan for human salvation brought the fruit of salvation into the world, Jesus Christ. The “yes” of Joseph made him the custodian of Jesus, working hard to fend for his family. Obedience is fruitful, while remonstrance and disobedience are sterile; sterile because there are no positive benefit accruing from them. Obedience, on the contrary, is the channel God uses to realize his plans for humanity. The disobedience of Adam and Eve took centuries to correct, and so does every disobedience postpone the blessings of God to his people. The “yes” of Moses put into motion the liberation of the Israelites. Joshua’s acceptance of a leadership role continued the process of liberation of Israel. Every “yes” to our vocations as parents, priests, workers of all sorts, fructify God’s plan for humanity.
Co-operation with God’s plan is clearly rewarded by God, this is the message of Paul. This Saviour of ours, Jesus Christ, despite the fact that his earthly life was link up with the race of David, God lifted him higher, according to our second reading, “the gospel about his Son, descended from David according to the flesh, but established as Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The good news is that not only Jesus Christ is rewarded for cooperating with God’s plans for him, we too are destined for this reward, should we cooperate with God’s plans for our lives. So, what happened to Jesus is a foretaste of what will happen to us.
Here and now, however, God calls you and me to be heralds of this good news that all and sundry are sons and daughters of God. In fact, Paul makes this clear when he writes: “through whom [Jesus] we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” If the obedience of Mary made her the Mother of the Saviour and brought the Saviour into the world, the obedience of Jesus Christ brings all peoples into the sonship and daughtership of God. But this message of sonship and daughtership will not reach all peoples unless you and me become agents and apostles to make this good news known.
Assignment for the Week:
Can you go tell someone who has lost his faith or has no religion about the Christian meaning of Christmas?