Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013
The Apparition of the Angel to St. Joseph
The joy of Christmas is drawing near, but we still have another week of Advent to reflect on the Incarnation, God becoming human in Jesus, the Messiah. Isaiah foresaw the Messiah as a good king, the successor to King David. He spoke of current times when he warned King Ahaz that by the time the child was weaned (“eating curds and honey”), the king’s land would be conquered. Christians would later look back and see Jesus in Isaiah’s prophecy about a child named Immanuel (“God with us”) born to a “young woman,” the Hebrew word “almah,” which the Greek Old Testament that the Evangelists knew would later translate as “parthenos” or “virgin.”
Psalm: Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
A Psalm of lament over Israel’s exile, this song, too, expresses hope that God will free the people and come with power to restore the kingdom and the Covenant. Early Christians surely took hope from reading these ancient verses as speaking of Jesus, “the one at God’s right hand whom God makes strong.”
Second Reading: Romans 1:1-7
The opening verses of Paul’s letters follow formal patterns set in Greco-Roman culture, like the “To whom it may concern, I hope this letter finds you well” that we might see in modern formal correspondence. Still, even these formulaic verses tell of Paul’s pastoral concerns for the Romans. Paul emphasizes that he is an apostle of Jesus, and that Jesus is the son of God, the descendant of David prophesied in Scripture – such as the Isaiah verses we read today. Paul assures Rome’s Christians that he comes in Jesus’s name to the Gentiles, who are God’s beloved, called to be saints.
Gospel: Matthew 1:18-25
Now we come to the brink of Christmas! Imagine Joseph, a man of an ancient, patriarchal culture, discovering that his sweet young fiancee is pregnant, and not with his child! Who wouldn’t decide to call the whole thing off? But Joseph is righteous and prefers to end the engagement quietly, without scandal or gossip. And then an angel comes to assure Joseph that Mary is bearing God’s son. And the angel repeats Isaiah’s prophecy! “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.” And then, as in an exciting movie serial, we must breathlessly wait for Christmas Day and the birth of Jesus.