Fourth Sunday of Advent
Bishop of Lake Charles
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
December 19, 2010
Fourth Sunday of Advent
“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.” Matthew 1:18
We are preparing to remember the Incarnation. This great mystery is what Christmas is all about. The Word of God becomes flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and enters the world. On Christmas day we will read the magnificent verses of the Gospel of St. John: “In the beginning was the Word…. And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:1, 14). It is the fulfillment of a dream.
I would suggest that the dream began long before this to reveal itself. For the Jews the most important event in their deliverance and salvation history is the Exodus with the Covenant at Mount Sinai. This had a beginning too. God reached out to His people, and He did so by first making contact with Moses in a burning bush. This is how the Book of Exodus relates the words of God to Moses: “I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” (Exodus 3:8). This act of God has virtually no precedence in any world religion. God takes the initiative. In His words, He comes down to rescue His people. His action is communicated with His powerful name, which He gives to Moses: “I am who am” (Exodus 3:14). One scholar of Sacred Scripture describes this action of God in this way: “No one can force Him, nor even penetrate to Him. … it also asserts something positive, an extra-ordinarily active and attentive presence, an invulnerable and liberating power, an inviolable promise: ‘I am’” (Xavier Leon-Dufour, Dictionary of Biblical Theology).
This same God is described in the Gospel of St. Luke as having sent the angel Gabriel to communicate to Mary. The message is that she will conceive and bear a son whose name will be Jesus. “He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32). God is coming down to earth. He is reaching down to mankind.
In the Gospel of St. Matthew that we hear today, an angel of God communicates this same message in a dream to Joseph. The angel explains to the troubled Joseph, “’It is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins’” (Matthew 1:20-21). God is coming “down to rescue his people.” What was done in the past through the mediation of a human agent, Moses, will now be done by God himself. The great Letter to the Hebrews will describe it this way: “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe” (Hebrews 1:1-2).
This is the good news of the Incarnation which we will actually celebrate every time we acknowledge Jesus as Lord but which we will recall in a special feast — Christmas. We will gather with friends and family and wish each other, “Merry Christmas.” Around Christmas trees we will sing carols that fill the air with wonder and awe at so great a coming down to earth. On a chilly night or an overcast winter day, we will bring the cheer and happiness of the Incarnation to the poor or the sick or a gift to someone we love. It is Christmas, and let no one take its joy from us.
For in that joy, we remember all that is good, all that is worthwhile, all that makes life worth living. Because if God saw fit to take on human flesh and redeem it, then there is hope and we have no reason for despair. The Gospel of St. Matthew, commenting on the message of the angel to Joseph, explains the significance of the name of Jesus, quoting a prophecy of Isaiah. The name Emmanuel means “God is with us” (Matthew 1:23). God is so near.
As the Fathers of our Catholic faith once observed, God revealed himself to Moses in a burning bush that was not consumed by fire. Now God reveals himself to us in a virgin birth, where the mother remains what she is — a virgin. It is miraculous. It is mysterious. It is the Incarnation, and it is Christmas.