Fourth Sunday of Advent (A)
(Isaiah 7:10-14; Romans 1:1-7; St. Matthew 1:18-24)
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you know very well the Gospel
account of Mary’s conception and the
birth of Jesus, of Joseph’s loving and protective care for them both, and of
the Magi bearing gifts; so perhaps we may today profitably give closer
attention to the reason ‘why’ Jesus came among us, as distinct from the manner
of His coming.
The simple fact is, that the Son of God became Jesus our Redeemer,
out of love for His heavenly Father; He became One of us in order to save us
from the fault incurred by Adam and
Eve, a stain of the Devil that soiled what the Father had originally esteemed
and loved as good – a stain now known as SIN -- which is in us
ourselves and, inevitably, in aspects of our social structures, and which, being the Devil’s spawn, is always and implacably, actively against
us as children of God.
Let us first of all try to appreciate that fact, Jesus did not
come as some pagan-type of imaginary deity working miracles, making stupendous
changes of whatever sort in human political and social life. As the Word and Son of God He became Man out
of sheer love for His Father, Whose love for the mankind He had originally made
in His own image and likeness still endured despite the fact that both Adam and
Eve had abused that ‘God-given likeness and freedom of choice’ by sinning. The Son of
God willed to become a most humble and helpless human-child – Jesus,
born of the virgin Mary of Nazareth -- simply and solely to rejoice His Father,
by freeing us from the shackles and consequences of the devil’s deception and
offering us the opportunity to become wholeheartedly loving and obedient,
children of God anew.
Being free to live here on earth for our authentic human
fulfilment, and thereby find eternal
happiness, is the supreme Gift Jesus
offers and wants to give to each and every one of us this Christmas. And an ever-greater appreciation of that
prospect of freedom and fulfilment is the HOPE we treasure during our Advent
preparation and the JOY we embrace and express throughout our Christmas worship
and Christian celebrations with our children, friends, and neighbours.
Throughout the whole of the Old Testament period God had been gradually
teaching and preparing His Chosen People to recognize and acknowledge sin in their own lives. If
we recall the original sin of Adam and Eve, when God confronted Adam about his
part in it, Adam said, ‘It was the woman who gave me the apple to eat’; and
when God confronted Eve, she said, ‘It was the serpent who deceived me’. Neither of them was willing to accept
personal fault, and that attitude became characteristic for their descendants to
this very day. The Mosaic Law was given
to God’s Chosen People to warn them how to recognize and avoid occasions of
sin; and Israel’s glorious prophets were sent to show the beauty and goodness
of the God Who was calling them to a better understanding of human life as God had
originally intended it: a life rejoicing in His love and delighting in His
creation.
Ultimately God sent His only-begotten
Son to complete the work as yet only initiated through His gift of the Mosaic Law and the
Prophets of Israel, a work, a purpose, which had floundered for many years in
the Chosen People until the coming of John the Baptist. John was, Jesus said, the greatest of the
prophets; and John recognized himself as having been sent to prepare for, and
even point out, the Messiah of Israel, Who would proclaim His Good News of
eternal life, and bestow His Gift of the Holy Spirit of God.
However, as in God’s Chosen People of
old, there is, a literally devilish resistance to God’s work in today’s world; and the fact, the spiritual reality, of
SIN – manifesting itself especially as personal pride and ignorance,
lust, hatred and indifference -- which Jesus came to destroy, is largely
ignored and even hypocritically denied by society as a whole today.
It is increasingly recognized that a human being can suffer much
from unsatisfactory relationships with other human beings in the social set-ups
at work, at home, and at play; and for such sufferers, helpers called
‘counsellors’ are increasingly provided with ‘promotional’ qualifications, so
to speak. But there is no public recognition of human relations
with God! All so-called personality or
psychological sicknesses are exclusively referred to those ‘qualified’
counsellors who, as such, profess no spiritual awareness, no aspirations to
holiness of life, nor are they given any authentic training in Christian
spirituality. Anyone feeling ‘unsourced’ guilt sin is just to be told that it is all a
matter of psychological crossed-wires or of the ‘genes and juices’ of human
physicality.
You however, Jesus’ Chosen People of God, can recognise not
only the sin of the world, but also the sins (at least some of them) we all
commit personally, and you are well aware of sin’s baleful, and
ever-so-subtle, influence on your daily experience of living life to the
full. When Our Blessed Lord humbled Himself to the utmost before His
crucifixion by accepting the full weight of human sinfulness upon Himself, He
sweated so profusely that it was as though drops of blood were ‘watering’ the
Garden around His kneeling or prostrate figure.
The fact that Jesus comes expressly to take away such a load from
us by offering us, in Himself, peace of heart and soul through our
restored relationship with God, is the reason why we, as Christians, are so
filled with JOY at Christmas!
And in all this monumental campaign against sin, Jesus did not
come seeking to accuse anyone, but simply to save one and all!
He came to begin His
Father-given task as a child, so
beautiful, so helpless and needy, and, for
Mary, so adorable!! And He
ended that task by dying on the Cross -- hated by many who were powerful
and ambitious -- for love of us, with absolutely no recriminations. So,
throughout the whole of His life on earth, Jesus sought not to personally
accuse but to embrace and save all who were and are willing to hear and respond
to the first words and very essence of His Gospel:
This is the time of fulfilment; the Kingdom of God is at hand;
Repent and Believe the Good News.
‘Repent’ means turn
away from sin, and in order to do that it is necessary to ‘believe’, that
is turn towards, aspire to, Jesus’ Gospel or Good News of salvation,
offering freedom from the power of sin. We can appreciate how unique
Jesus’ message and offer was if we think that men’s thirst for revenge -- so
prevalent in radical groups all over the world -- is a deliberate rejection of and refusal to
accept an absolutely essential part of Jesus’ Good News, namely that we must
forgive ‘those who trespass against us’ if we want to have part with Him and
gain freedom from the dominating power of sin in our lives.
Sin is incontestably manifest not only in the ‘older’ world around
us but most sadly, in the world and lives
of even young people, where pride manifests itself so often in a distaste for
what is ordinary, and their subsequent desire for excitement to lift them out
of the ‘ordinary’ so easily leads them on to criminality and violence,
excessive drink, sexual abuse, and drug-addiction.
Jesus’ offer of freedom
from sin means His lifting from our shoulders all such burdens by His gifts of
peace, hope, mutual love and self-respect, all of which are fruits of Jesus’
self-sacrifice and God’s grace in our lives. Such fruits are redolent
with the blood of Jesus and the incense of His Most Holy Spirit, and they cannot in any way be compared with, or
imitated by, the political pseudo-blessings bequeathed to us by the inglorious and bloody French Revolution,
though expressed by purely rational ideals of liberty, fraternity. and
equality, which convey no God-given grace able to raise us up above our native
earthly sinfulness, and which are always themselves subject to changing human
interpretations and aspirations.
For us, however, we have Jesus’ own chosen words to make clear for
us the purpose of His coming among us:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me: He has anointed Me to bring
glad tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. (Luke 4:18)
He is the Anointed One, sent, come, to bring the Good News of the
Gospel proclaiming His offer of liberty, freedom, for all presently held
captive by their own sinfulness and spiritually benighted by the darkness and
evil in the world around them.
How well Saint Paul understood and expressed our human situation
I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my
mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:23–25)
And the final
book of the Bible, in tune with St. Paul, joyfully proclaims:
I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed. (Those who fear Your Name) have conquered (the Devil) by the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them.” (Revelation 12:10–12)
Dear faithful People of God, your rejoicing at this Holy Mass
should indicate that you already ‘dwell in the heavens’: only initially, it is
true, but the way before you is level, smooth and inviting, and God’s goodness
will guide along it to your full calling and ultimate fulfilment as a beloved
son or daughter of the Father of us all.
Let us prepare to celebrate Jesus’ coming with, by the help of, Mary who knows supremely well , as our Mother, how best to help us co-operate with God’s Most Holy Spirit in learning how to become ever-more true disciples of her Son in giving sincere and heart-felt thanks to God the Father, the Giver of all that is good.
