FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT A

[cappie]

For  millennia , God had tried to get the attention of the people God loved. God appeared in burning bushes, spoke through pillars of fire and fine manna from heaven, provided water in the wilderness and lands flowing with milk and honey, and still, the people wouldn’t listen. It was a language barrier, God thought. “They can’t hear me.” So, God spoke louder and bolder.

Prophets spoke with God’s voice. They tried their best to call the people back to God, but the words fell on deaf ears. Humanity  ignored the messengers and the message.  So, God hatched a plan. God would become flesh and blood. The creator of the universe, the One who called the cosmos into being with a word, would take human flesh. But how?

A baby. Babies by their very presence inspire hope for the future. But God as a baby had to be special. Not the baby of a powerful queen, but a helpless baby, born in a backwater town. God was going to become a nobody. “I will be Immanuel – ‘God with us’ – to show them the face of love.” But what if things go wrong? What if something happened to God as a helpless little child? That was the chance that Love was going to have to take.

God was ready,  and the angel found a girl named Mary that said yes.  But the messenger had forgotten about Joseph.  

Joseph must have been perplexed But why her? Why me? Why here? We are poor and simple and powerless. Why would God choose to be born here? It doesn’t make sense.  

The time had come for the baby to be born. All those eons of loving and longing and hoping came together in this one seemingly insignificant moment. At last, God could speak our language. In Jesus, we are reminded  God is with us. God was with us when times were tough, when the weight of the world seemed heavy on our shoulders.  

God is with us through the struggle and the storm. God is with us in our stumbling and shortcomings, in triumphs and our thanksgiving, in the midst of the messiness of our lives and the days we seem to barely hold it together. God is with us.

God will be with us, as we travel into the unknown, as we venture on deeper water and uncharted paths. God will be with us in the silence and in the shouts, in our liberation and our longing. In Jesus, God was, God is, and God will be with us. Always.

The thing is, we, as the people of God and the followers of Jesus, forget that all our lives, our loves, and our longings are caught up in a God who became flesh and blood and bone and body to be with us. Ours is not a deity that is far off, removed from humanity; instead, ours is a God who knew hunger and longing and hard work. “God is with us” is both pledge and promise that no matter where we find ourselves in this life, even in death and beyond death, that we are never, ever, ever alone!

Our world longs to see God with us. As followers of Jesus, we are called to be grounded in the truth that God’s love is more than enough to cast out our fear. We know that God comes to us again and again seeking, searching, and sowing love. To know, to truly know, and to rest in that holy knowing, is to recognize that in Jesus Christ, God is in charge, and no matter how much we try to cling to the past, no matter how much we long for what has been, God is always pointing to the future.  

 At Christmastime we naturally turn to one another at work, at home, and even on the street to wish greetings of peace and happiness. But there are also those who feel alone or abandoned. The central message of this season is Emmanuel--“God with us.” Let’s be generous in sharing God’s gift of relationship with others.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, cappie said:

God is in charge, and no matter how much we try to cling to the past, no matter how much we long for what has been, God is always pointing to the future.  

 

2 hours ago, cappie said:

The central message of this season is Emmanuel--“God with us.” Let’s be generous in sharing God’s gift of relationship with others.

Thank you again, Father. for the always welcome and inspirational weekly homilies.  A very Happy Christmas and on in to 2020 to you and to yours............

Barb