4th Sunday of Advent - Fitting into God’s Plan [December 23]
| 1st. Reading | : | Isaiah 7:10-14 |
| 2nd Reading | : | Romans 1: 1-7 |
| Gospel | : | Matthew 1: 18-24 |
Dear Friend,
We all are making plans for Christmas, or have already made plans for how we are going to celebrate Christmas. In fact most of our lives we are making plans for the future. When our plans are upset we get disturbed and try to make things fit into our plans. We want to be in charge of our lives and have control over what life has in store for us. God has a wonderful plan for making our lives happy but his plan reveals itself slowly in the events of daily life. Can we fit into His plan instead of wanting Him to fit in our plan? Often it implies going out of our way to accommodate others and God in our lives. Have a weekend of surprises accommodating God!
- Fr. Jude
The time is the 8th Century BC and king Ahaz is worried whether the kingdom of Judah will be destroyed by his two powerful neighbours. King Ahaz waits for the attack of his neighbours with fear and helplessness and looks around for allies and help. He decides to go to Assyria, a superpower and ask for help to destroy his powerful neighbours. Isaiah is advisor to king Ahaz and is strongly against what the king is doing. He argues that the dynasty of David will not be preserved through playing power politics but only through trusting in God. The prophet gives the king a sign ‘the maiden is with child and will give birth to a son whom she will call Emmanuel, a name which means ‘God is with us’ This sign is given to the king to assure him that God is with Israel But Ahaz refuses to believe in the sign and trust in God.
Sign Of Christianity
The words of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, written in the third century are as timely today as when he wrote them. He said: “If I could ascend some high mountain and look over this wide world, you know very well what I would see. Robbers on the high roads, pirates on the sea… selfishness and cruelty, misery and despair under all roofs. It is a bad world, an incredibly bad world, but in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They are despised and persecuted but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians and I am one of them.
- Anthony Castle in ‘Quotes and Anecdotes’
The second reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans emphasizes two important aspects of Jesus that we should think about during this season: Jesus’ humanity and Jesus’ divinity. In Jesus’ humanity he descended from David and was the Jesus of Nazareth, human and subject to weaknesses and to death. But Jesus was also uniquely Son of God, the source of all holiness and life for the entire human race, who was able to communicate the gift of the spirit of God through his resurrection from the dead. We are called to belong to Jesus, and are through him the beloved of God called to be holy like him.
Attitude Changes Things!
One day a lady who lived in town looked out of her window and saw a big truck pull up to her house, Out jumped five rascals and started unloading electric guitars and loudspeakers and drums…. They took them to the neighbours house. The woman was furious. Now her night’s rest and her ears and her life would be ruined by all the noise that would come from the house. Her husband came home from work and she began to scream at him, “We’ve got to move away from here or else we’ll go deaf and mad with that string band next door. But he calmed her down a bit and said, “Honey, why are you angry? Don’t you realize who those musicians are? They are the famous Sanguma String band that plays overseas to large crowds…. Woman, we should be glad they are here; we’ll be getting all this famous music for free.” His wife’s frown turned to a smile. She ran to the telephone and began to call her friends to come over sometime and take advantage of the Sanguma Band….. How attitude changes everything! Our attitude to Jesus too can change everything!
- ‘Quote’ in ‘1000 Stories You Can Use’
In today’s reading of Matthew’s Gospel, unlike King Ahaz, who did not trust God’s sign given to him, Joseph puts his trust in the rather upsetting sign of Mary’s mysteriously conceived child. Thanks to Joseph, of the family of David, Jesus will belong to the royal line. And, because of his faith, it is Joseph who gives the child a rightful name: Jesus, which means –God saves! Perhaps there are those who fear the approach of Christmas for whatever reason, they can take heart and hope from the story of the first Christmas. There was plenty of fear present there too! In fact all the main characters in it were afraid at one time or another. Joseph was afraid when he found that Mary was expecting a child even though they hadn’t been living together. But the angel appeared to him to reveal to him who the child was. Joseph did not fully understand, but being a just man, trusted God and so overcame his fear and did what was right. All of us are touched by fear at one time or another but we must not let our fears cripple us. Like Joseph we must seek to do the just and loving thing so that we move from fear to faith. Trust is the thing that enables us to move from fear to faith. The Christ child who comes to us at Christmas challenges us to enter into an intimate trusting relationship with God, trusting that we will receive love, and always more love. Though his humble and trusting action Joseph cooperated with God’s plan and provided a space for Jesus in his family and in the world. By trusting and cooperating with God in our own humble way we too can create a space for him to enter into our lives and into the present world.
Heroic Duty
The country doctor Brunoy had just said goodbye to his colleagues who had confirmed that Jean, the doctor’s only son, would die in a few hours of diphtheria. The anti toxin injections had been too late. As he now sat with his wife by the boy’s bedside awaiting the child’s death the doorbell rang. The doctor shouted to his secretary, “I don’t want to see anyone.” But the visitor would not go away. It was the farmer Rivaz who had walked 10 kilometres from Roseland. His son was sick. “I’ll come tomorrow” the doctor told him. “But if you don’t come now, he won’t make it through the night,” the farmer insisted. Then began a discussion…. “You can cure my son.” “But mine’s lost, he’s beyond all cure.” “But mine isn’t.” “Well, I’ll come tomorrow morning.” “Then it will be too late.” “Let me close the eyes of my dying child.” “But if you cannot help him any longer….” “As long as my son is alive, I’ll remain with him.” “All right, then both the children will die.” The doctor then asked for the symptom’s of the boy’s sickness and they were the same as his son’s had been. But it was still not too late to save him. So the doctor decided to go with the farmer.
- Ludolf Ulrich in ‘1000 Stories You Can Use’
"When Matthew tells of the annunciation to Joseph, he is not concerned with the latter’s psychological reactions. He is simply trying to answer the question: “Who is the Messiah?” For Matthew, ‘Jesus, who will save the people from their sins’ is the ultimate heir of Israel, and it is Joseph who gives Jesus a place in the genealogy of David. Joseph was informed from the outset about the expected birth (and what more likely person than Mary?) He thought it was his duty to efface himself before the mystery, in which he seems to have no role. But God intervened and made clear to him that although the child in Mary’s womb was of ‘the Holy Spirit’, he Joseph, would have to guarantee its legal status and recognize it as his own. By means of Joseph, the house of David was to accept ‘God-is-with-us’ in this son, and so welcome the whole programme of salvation from the incarnation to the ascension. Even today we describe the birth of a child as a ‘happy event’. But what words can describe the birth of this child, –this event in which Joseph played a humble but indispensable part? We are dealing here not just with the story of another human family, but also with the very story of salvation itself –the story of Emmanuel – ‘God-is-with-us’.
- Glenstal Sunday Missal
With Eyes Wide Shut
In his book Beyond East and West John Wu has a fascinating passage. It reads as follows: “My wife and I had never seen each other before marriage. Both of us….. were brought up in the old Chinese way. It was our parents who engaged us to each other, when we were barely six years of age. In my early teens I came to know where her house was. I had an intense desire to have a glimpse of her. In coming back from school, I sometimes took a roundabout way so as to pass by the door of her house….. but I never had the good fortune to see her.” Wu goes on to say that he realizes the old Chinese marriage sounds incredible to Western readers. Some of his Western friends could hardly believe it at first. Wu says he was surprised his friends found the system so incredible. He asked them whether they chose their parents, brothers and sisters. Then he said, “And don’t you love them just the same?” John Wu’s passage from his book helps us to appreciate better the relationship between Joseph and Mary before Jesus’ birth.
- Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’
A Wondrous Happening
Sometimes fact is more mysterious than fiction! The "Denver Post" printed an article December 23, 1981 about a stranger-than-fact event that occurred in Colorado. Stan Sieczkowski heard in church about a Denver family facing a rather bleak Christmas holiday. Medical bills robbed them of any extras; they would not even have a tree. So Stan and his son Jay determined to get them that tree. They headed up into the Colorado Rockies in the family pickup. However, the truck skidded off the icy road and hit a boulder that shattered the windshield. Jay was showered by glass slivers and suffered from shock and crash trauma. Stan was uninjured, though somewhat shaken. Cars sped past that day -- maybe 200 of them. Only two stopped. A gentle, dark-haired woman took the boy into her car to comfort him while her husband and another man helped Stan move his truck off the road. Then they drove father and son to Stan's home and quietly left without identifying themselves. Later that month, Stan's pastor asked if he might deliver a food basket to the unfortunate family for which he had earlier tried to cut a tree. Stan found the house, but he could hardly find his speech when the door opened. Standing there before him was the same couple who had helped him on the mountain road! Call it an amazing coincidence...or call it divine providence. Some mysteries are better left unanalyzed. But it is nice to remember that, when we give our hearts away in a spirit of generosity, we can still brush up against wonder, joy and love.
- Steve Goodier
May we fit into His plan rather than make our plan for Him!
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