22 December 2013 - king of nations, child of mary

22 December 2013 - king of nations, child of mary


Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God;
let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky!
But Ahaz answered,
“I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!”
Then Isaiah said:
Listen, O house of David!
Is it not enough for you to weary people,
must you also weary my God?

Is our hope wearing thin?  Can we not muster the hope to ask God for a sign, even when he tells us he wants to give us one?  If our eyes have been on the world and not on heaven this is a risk we face.  We see suffering and pain as business as usual.  It seems constant, why should it change now?  We come to misidentify hope with naive wishful thinking since this is the only meaning for it which the world can understand.  And understanding that meaning of course it ridicules it.

Let us lift up our eyes and fix them on heaven.  Let our ideas about what is normal come from his word.  Let our hope be based on him saying, "Nothing will be impossible for God."

When we are too tired and beaten down to look up we can take comfort that God does not abandon us to our weakness.  He gives the sign anyway.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.
And if we misunderstand the first sign he won't stop even then.

Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.

He wants to open our hearts to welcome this King.  He comes, not for his own sake, but to give life in abundance to those who dwell in darkness.  It isn't a test, although there is a choice to be made.  It is an invitation of love.

Let the Lord enter; he is king of glory
May he teach us to see his glory in the face of the Divine Child.  It looks like just another birth.  But may the word of the angel teach us to hope (and not to wish) that salvation is at hand.  We need clean hearts to see him.  We need to not got lost in the vain desires that the secular variant of this holy season readily suggests.  But he himself longs to empower us to recognize him when he comes.

but established as Son of God in power
according to the Spirit of holiness
through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.
He wants to establish this truth in our hearts.  The Spirit is a witness to who Jesus is.  He witnesses as he lays in the manger.  He witnesses even before, for example to Elizabeth and her yet unborn child.  He witnesses to us as well.  He is simultaneously the purification and the revelation that we need to behold our coming king.  He overshadows Mary at the birth of Jesus and he overshadows the Church at its birth.  We need him in us if we wish for Jesus to be born anew in our hearts.

you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”

May we learn to call him Jesus in all that entails.  May we truly rely on him as our savior.  When the world encroaches with it's pain and empty meaningless seeking let us listen attentively to the angel and refuse to fear.

“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
Trusting Mary is synergistic with trusting the Holy Spirit.

For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
There is a sense which Mary is "like" an incarnation of the Holy Spirit as St. Maximillian Kolbe teaches.  And it is here that we can truly understand this without blasphemy.  She reveals what his presence in a human looks like in fullness.  Indeed, she reveals how he desires to be present in us.  But Mary and the Holy Spirit have a union so complete that even as the Spirit unites us to her she in turn unites us to him as we rely on her and trust in her.  Does this sound extreme?  Maybe it should, somewhat.  But we in turn, when others trust us to teach them about God, if we are humble and honest, entrust them completely to the Holy Spirit as well.  Mary simply does this completely, unhindered by sin, completely in accord with the will of Jesus and the Father. 

Mary, let us be close to you so that the Holy Spirit may cover us with his shadow as well.  Let your yes become ours as the Holy Spirit speaks it.  Let your child be born in our hearts as well.  And may the light not stop within our hearts.  May he shine for the world to see.