Fourth Advent Sunday, Year C
Theme: God Is Willing To Suffer
God is righteous and by deduction, fair. Therefore, He enjoys supporting the disadvantaged and the vulnerable, probably to show off His might. In doing battles for the Israelites, He only picked a handful of soldiers to defeat thousands. For example, He instructed Gideon to choose 300 men to annihilate a 135000 strong Midianite army (Judges 8:10). God is almighty. He doesn’t even need a single human soldier to defeat millions of Israelite enemies. In the Exodus story, He drowned Pharaoh’s chariots and foot soldiers single-handedly in the Red Sea. But for our good, He wants us to work with Him to achieve our own deliverance. Otherwise, our potentials would never be actualized. On the other hand, He doesn’t want us to be spoiled by our arrogance, thinking that “My own power saved me” (7:2). So, He symbolically selected a few in order to keep the number small.
Around the first century, the Jews were suffering under consecutive colonial rules. They longed for a powerful liberator to chase away the oppressors. The Psalms we read today shows their sentiment. “O Shepherd of Israel … Seated upon the cherubim, shine forth … Stir up your power, and come to save us.” (Psalms 80:2-3). Moses had been the archetype of their liberators, some mighty people sent by God. Thus they expected the next liberator to be somebody like Moses who had been raised in Pharaoh’s court. In other words, they expected the Messiah to be of royal blood, a mighty warrior king. God was faithful and did not disappoint them. The Son of God did come as an offspring of King David, a king after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). However, the Son of God was not born into the royal palace because the David’s line no longer occupied the royal throne after the Babylonian Captivity. In a miraculous manner, this suits the modus operandi of God who champions the underdogs. Thus, the Jews would have to look for their Messiah elsewhere in the most unexpected place!
The first reading drops us some hint. “But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah least among the clans of Judah …” (Micah 5:1) In hindsight, we now know that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem instead of its neighbour Jerusalem or even in Rome! Though Bethlehem was relatively undeveloped, a powerful king who was able to unite the 12 tribes of Israel for the first time came from it. What about the mother of this Messiah, she turned out to be a maid from an insignificant village, Nazareth which was in the neighbourhood of Gentiles in the north. Its reputation was as lowly as Bethlehem if not worse. One of the future apostles even says, “Can there any good thing come out from Nazareth?” (John 1:46) Thus, few people would bet on this candidate unless those who know the Scriptures well.
On a deeper level, Bethlehem was actually a good choice because literally, it means the “house of bread” which gave birth to Jesus Christ, the “bread of life”; while Nazareth, the “Guarded One” gave us our Saviour and one who lives forever to make intercession for us before God (Hebrews 7:25)! Of course, the maid is the now famous Blessed Virgin Mary. But I suspect few people know the meaning of the word Maria (Miriam) in Hebrew מְרִי which means “rebellion” (Numbers 17:10, Deuteronomy 31:27 etc.). Empowered by God, a fragile but “rebellious” virgin is somebody to be reckoned with. All evidences point to the work of a God who takes side with the poor, the mournful, the meek and all those who hunger and thirst for His deliverance (Matthew 5:3-6)!
In real life, both pregnant women did not understand what was happening to them! When they met, Elizabeth suddenly felt that she was infused with an unspeakable power such that the infant she was carrying in her womb leaped with joy (1:41). What follows was a poetic Magnifcat, declaring how God elevates the lowly and throws down the mighty (1:52). Of course, there is no guarantee that the path ahead is going to be a bed of roses. NO! It would be very thorny indeed! The Collect spells out this connection between Christmas and Easter very well. It says, “Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ you Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of Resurrection …” Without Incarnation, the Son of God would not be human. He would not die and there would be no resurrection. If God does not destroy death with resurrection, what’s the point of Incarnation? In short, Christmas and Easter are two sides of the same coin.
In the past, God chose the minority to defeat the majority. In the process, the minority was protected and sustained no harm. Now, God goes further. He himself suffers and is imprinted with wounds which He keeps. He proves that no defeats, no pains and no sufferings would deter Him from loving us, no matter how unworthy we are. He is faithful and would not be easily disappointed by our failures.
Brethren! How blessed we are! Our God is not a control freak! He has confidence in us and helps us actualize our potentials to become like Him. Where else can we go? Simon Peter once confessed, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) Let us follow the examples of Mary and Elizabeth. Be prepared to suffer and sustain wounds as Christians!
God bless!
Picture Credit: mycatholic.life
2018 Reflection
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