EMMANUEL - GOD IS WITH US!
Blessed 4th Sunday of Advent. Soon & very soon, we will be celebrating Christmas. Have you truly prepared the way of the Lord in your life? Have you made your uneven & crooked paths straight? Are you ready to behold the salvation of God in your life?
Today’s scriptures invite us to draw close to Mary’s Child: Jesus Christ, the Emmanuel! In our 1st Reading from Isaiah 7:10-14, we hear Isaiah confronting King Ahaz of Judah with the truth. Here’s the situation – in 734 BC when Ahaz was facing a very powerful enemy, Isaiah encouraged Ahaz to have faith & to trust the Lord’s power to deliver Jerusalem, & he offered the king a sign from the Lord. When Ahaz stubbornly & hypocritically refused, Isaiah proclaimed that a sign would be given anyway, the sign of a virgin with a child whose name shall be called Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” (cf Isaiah 7:14) What is God telling Ahaz (& us too) through Isaiah? The Lord God is saying that he would be with His people when they face their powerful enemies; & He will save them!
In our beautiful Gospel of Matthew 1:18-24, we find Joseph faced with a difficult choice: to accept that Mary, his betrothed, has a child not from him, or to divorce her informally. What a quandary he found himself to be in! What would Joseph do? Then in a dream, he heard the angel of the Lord give him direction & assurance, quoting the very verse from Isaiah 7:14. Joseph listened & obeyed – the scriptures do not record Joseph saying anything - he just did the right thing & “did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home” (Matthew 1:24).
Compare Ahaz’s decisions with that of Joseph. Ahaz chose to put his trust, not in the Lord, but in military power & might, & chose to align with the Assyrian king to fight against his enemy – the northern kingdom of Israel. He forgot the words of his ancestor King David from Psalm 20:6-8: “Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with mighty victories by his right hand. Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand upright.”
Joseph, on the other hand, heeded the words of his ancestor David & trusted in God. And what a world of difference this made. Ahaz is consigned to a brief note in history as a bad king; Joseph is forever loved as honoured as the Foster Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ!
Dear brothers & sisters, to whom do you place your hope, trust & confidence in & pledge your allegiance to? Maybe not in military might like Ahaz, but in wealth, power, status, skills, capabilities, achievements, possessions, social connections & influence? Or, like Joseph, you place your trust in Jesus, the Lord our Emmanuel, “God is With Us”? In illness & difficulties pressing against you, do you call on the name of the Lord Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) – the Name that means ‘God Saves’? (cf Matthew 1:21). Maybe I’m being simplistic & should favour going for a nuanced approach. But No! The reality is that it all boils down to this simple question: “God is with us! But are we with God?”
Let this celebration of the Nativity of the Lord open our eyes anew to the presence of Jesus in our lives. Perhaps life experiences & situations cloud our vision & shroud us in darkness of sin, fear, pride, laziness & falsehood. But, Christ the Light of the World has come! Thus, we, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shone.” (cf Isaiah 9:2)
May you walk in the Light of the Lord Jesus this holy season & may you also let the Light of Christ in you shine to your family & loved ones, bring them the promise of Everlasting Hope, Peace, Joy & Love! Amen! Alleluia!
Article by Damian Boon, HFC Blog Team Lead