There are four annunciations or announcements in our Gospel this Sunday.
1. To all the Marys everwhere—
Mary’s Annunciation— reminds me of an advertising slogan for a shoe company that says, “No great story starts, “it was cold, so I stayed in.”
In classical Greek and Roman mythology every hero’s story really begins when he or she leaves “home.” Of course, you don’t have to physically leave home, rather the message is don’t be afraid of the cold. Take risks. Great things can happen when you step out of your preconceived plans and be open to God’s will.
2. St. Joseph’s angelic announcement came in a dream-- Everything is fine until Mary returns from spending three months with her cousin Elizabeth and he discovers that she is pregnant.
He did not know what to say.
Ronnie Shakes, a comedian, shares, “I fear one day I’ll meet God, he’ll sneeze and I won’t know what to say.”
St. Joseph had no less than three recorded dreams in Scripture. He climbed aboard the Dream Weaver train as that hit single says by Gary Wright in the 1970’s. In the Bible, dreams are most often portrayed as a vehicle of divine revelation. How do we experience angelic guidance in our dreams, resting in the Lord? The text says that Joseph awoke and did as the angel told him and took Mary his wife into his home, immediately.
In time-management parlance, that's called "eating your frog"--taking on your hardest task first thing in the morning (after prayer). Source: Katherine Willis Pershey, December 13, 2010, The Christian Century).
Joseph was righteous, and preferred to keep the scandal out of the papers, and save everybody any further embarrassment. God’s plans and Joseph’s initially did not seem to coincide. Do I have preconceived ideas for my own life that aren’t matching God’s plan for me? Am I able to adjust and thrive? What in our lives appeared to be a disaster but was meaningful from God’s perspective when we view it in hindsight with the eyes of faith?
3. to all the Pauls everywhere-
In our Second Reading, St. Paul’s divinely inspired, self-announcement is his very first description of himself, using the metaphor of a slave saying, I “Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus.” Slavery was widespread in the Roman Empire. Estimates claim three slaves to one free citizen. In using the word slave for himself he desires to stress his total submission and commitment to Christ Jesus, who is Kyrios, “master,” but also “Lord.” (source: Anchor Bible Commentary, Romans).
Paul says if a person was a slave when called by God, they should gain their freedom if they can (1 Corinthians 7:21) and the one who was free when called by God is to be spiritually considered as Christ’s slave.
Well, what if you were an actual slave and you could not gain your freedom? Paul says, in effect, focus on as Jesus as the Messiah, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” so you can use your faith as a counter ideology that offers an alternative form of allegiance from that of subordination to Imperial authorities.
(Source: Paul and the Rise of the Slave: Death and Resurrection of the Oppressed in the Epistle to the Romans, K. Edwin Bryant, (Biblical Interpretation Series, 141.) Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016.)
Paul worked hard. He was a tentmaker; a worker of leather and a weaver of goat’s hair. Paul accepted financial contributions from some local churches as we see in Philippians, chapter 4, but he refused financial contributions from the Corinthians (1 Cor. 9:15) as twice the he taught them, “You were bought with a price” as part of his teaching against sexual immorality. If he would have accepted money, it would signal his willingness to be subject to key contributors who would then have reason to claim rights over Paul. A good reflection question for us: Do we comprise our integrity by money in any way?
Source: Currents in Theology and Mission Date: January 1, 2007, He Identified with the Lowly and Became a Slave to All: Paul's Tentmaking as a Strategy for Mission, Joel N. Lohr Durham University England).
3. Ahaz had an inverted annunciation or an upside announcement, at the words of the Prophet Isaiah--
Ahaz is like the student who responded to Robert Frost at a poetry reading. Frost sometimes read his poetry to university audiences. On one such occasion he concluded his poetry reading with the familiar line "promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep." A student raised her hand. "You spoke of promises to keep. What promises?"
Frost replied, "If I had wanted you to know, I would have told you."
T. S. Eliot once wrote, of Dante, that it is not the poet’s job to convince us of what he believes, but that he believes.
For persons living an upright life, we know our promises to keep deep in our hearts.
In the book of Chronicles, Ahaz faces attacks on several fronts: Aram and Israel from the far north-east, Edom from the south-east, the Philistines from the west, and Assyria from the north-east. He is thus being attacked from all sides.
Ephesians 4:27 says, "Do not give the devil a foothold." Sinning with full consent of the will gives the devil a foothold in our life. Repentance and confession undoes that.
In today’s Gospel, Azah only has two threats to his southern kingdom of Judah, but that is also where Isaiah lives (cf. Isaiah Chapter 1). Isaiah says to Ahaz that if Ahaz would trust God and none other, God would deliver his kingdom and Jerusalem. (Isaiah 7:9)
He is being invited to test God, to prove God true, but he himself is being tested by God's word. Actually, Ahaz is mocking God by speaking about God but who had no intention to obey his plan and will and Ahaz never made a pretense to do so.
Actually, Isaiah is addressing not just Ahaz but the entire nation’s unbelief as it has frequently been noted that Isaiah's "hear now" in Isaiah 7:13 is a command in the plural. It was addressed to all the Ahazes everywhere whom receive God’s will through the prophetic word offered, but it is declined, but still given anyway. God helps us in his mercy, we have been worldly and rebellious, seeking our way.
So God takes matters into his own hands and says this will be the sign: “the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14).
The Christian church for centuries has asserted that the fulfillment of this prediction is recorded in Matthew 1:22-23 and fulfilled in Mary, a virgin.
Modern Lessons learned from Ahaz’s self-centered pitfalls?
How do we respond to God’s revealed will? In our sources of encouragement, what are wells of inspiration, and models of imitation, and how does Scripture influence us that we hear at Mass?
Amen.
