GOD AND US
December 18, 2022.
Fourth Sunday of Advent – A.
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they
shall name him Emmanuel, which means "God is with us."” Matthew 1:23
A Scottish proverb asks: “If God be with us, who will be
against us?” And an Afghan proverb adds: “If you sit with us, you will get like
us; if you sit beside a cooking pot, you will get black.”
One of the central prophecies of Advent is that of Emmanuel,
that is, "God with us." It is a central prophecy of Advent because it
gives the meaning of what we are preparing ourselves to live at Christmas. God,
the Most High comes to be with his creatures, and to be one of them and one
with them. Christmas reminds us that God is always with us in our journey of
life, sharing our hopes and joys, struggles and uncertainties, and
strengthening us in our weaknesses. But then rises a question: if God is with
us, are we ourselves with God?
An article by Jennifer Slattery in the Webmagazine IBelieve
says: “In truth, God is and always has been with us. He is omnipresent, which
means He is everywhere all the time. Speaking of God, the ancient psalmist
David wrote, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your
presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the
depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the
far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will
hold me fast” (Psalm 139:7-10). And in Jeremiah 23:23-24, God said, “‘Am I only
a God nearby,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God far away? Who can hide in
secret places so that I cannot see them?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do not I fill
heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord”
So, God being with us is not a newness or an invention of
Advent or Christmas. He created us and stayed by our side. One thing, however,
is that he created us to be with him. We could quote St. Augustine in his
famous sentence: “You have made us for yourself...” God made us be with him.
And our life gets its meaning only by being with him.
Regrettably, sin has broken us apart from God. We have gone
away from him by our choices and free will. The incarnation of the Son of God
at Christmas is to restore our being with God. At Christmas, God comes to be
anew with us so that we could be with God and stay with him. It is only at that
cost salvation is made possible. For, salvation consists in man being with God
and letting God decide the direction of our lives. Salvation is when a man
returns to the original obedience to God’s will. And that is the reason why the
Son of God is to be born in our likeness, the reason why God accepted to go
through a humiliating kenosis – a “self-emptying” and fill himself of our humanity.
An admirable exchange where God comes to be with man for man to be with God and
rediscover God’s likeness in us.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI writes: “Most of us in the world
today live far from Jesus Christ, the incarnate God who came to dwell amongst
us. We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and occupations
that totally absorb us and thus are a great distance from the manger. In all
kinds of ways, God has to prod us and reach out to us again and again, so that
we can manage to escape from the muddle of our thoughts and activities to
discover the way that leads to him. God comes to us as man so that we might
become truly human,” made at the image and likeness of God.
All three readings on this fourth Sunday of Advent can be
centered on the prophetic vision of Isaiah, the Emmanuel, or the birth of the
son of a virgin. To King Ahaz worrying about his fate and that of the Kingdom,
the Lord sent his Prophet to tell him: "Ask the Lord your God for a sign
for yourself coming either from the depths of Sheol or from the heights above."
But Ahaz, having abandon God and the religion of his ancestors, refuses. So the
Lord himself made a promise: “the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and
shall name him Emmanuel, ‘God with us’.” The Gospel passage will come then to
enlighten us on how this promise came to fulfillment. The sign is Mary, who in
her virginity has conceived a son through the power of the Holy Spirit. And
Matthew in the Gospel tells us that “All this took place to fulfill what the
Lord had said through the prophet…”
Christmas is a time of fulfillment of all the prophecies.
With the prophecy of the Emmanuel and the annunciation made to Joseph, we are
at the core of the Nativity of the Lord. Before we will celebrate it properly
on the night of the 24th and on Christmas day, the word of God plunges us
already in that joy and its central message for us. God, in the Lord
Jesus-Christ, made himself Emmanuel, God in our immanence. The omniscient and
almighty has become the alter ego of man, taking a share in our alterity. He
has become a God with humankind and for mankind.
As we said ahead, God, from the creation has always been with mankind. But that was in dialog and sometimes distant, unseen, unfelt because of our sins. But at the incarnation, he takes away all barriers and hindrances and becomes a man. In Jesus, he has entered our humanity. Jesus Christ is, therefore, the Emmanuel, God with us. He became one with us and one of us to teach us the greatest way to come closer to God and become like God: the obedience of faith. It is only through obedience and sincere faith that, not only can we believe that Jesus is God among us, but also that we are called to become like God. Without faith, no one can become Christ-like and without obedience, we will always be kept away from God, and remain children of Adam, subjects of the original disobedience closing us into the prison of sin and its consequences. God with us is our hope of freedom and life. Let us walk to meet him with certainty, under the candlelight of love.
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