Fourth Sunday of Advent

I am sure we all have most of our presents bought and wrapped at this stage. Perhaps there is one present you have bought that is a complete surprise to someone and you can't wait to see their reaction and their delight at your creativity and thoughtfulness because it was something they may have had their eye on, something they longed for or wanted or would put to good use. As the gift giver you think of the surprise element and the joy of giving as well as receiving.

The measure of love is the extent of the care, consideration and thought that went into the purchase of the present, the monetary value of the present comes into it, it's suitability to the taste of the one receiving the present and the fact that they were prepared to spend 'that much' on you ! As well also as the care wrapping the present and they might ask when did you think of it? Some presents just present themselves, others take time and effort and imagination. And shopping around. Maybe even from as early January sales.

On the internet at the moment there is a lovely you tube clip of a woman in her home who is expecting to get a present of a wide screen TV and her husband has asked her to wear a blindfold as he makes sounds and words from the front door and hall like 'make room there' 'step back' and 'go easy.' What is actually happening and what she doesn't see is that their son is home from abroad for Christmas and she is finally told to take off the blindfold and she gets the surprise of her life. It is very emotional as she cries and embraces her son. It was a well kept secret and its revelation is recorded on a smart phone.

That a family might conspire to keep a secret like someone coming home for Christmas is a much more difficult secret to keep from someone. When it involves a person coming there is more energy and effort in keeping it closely guarded.

All of this points to how God operates with mankind. The greatest gift God gave was his very self in his only Son Jesus Christ. But the Jews to whom it was revealed were kept waiting for hundreds of years before their long awaited Messiah.

What has spoiled Christmas spirit is plenty the year long, there is something about reward and effort..if there is reward without effort then it is not a reward at all. How often have we heard the expression 'Sure children have everything now? In our day it wasn't like that! You had to do without and everyone was the same and there were no two ways about it.'

Advent the season of waiting reminds us that in His mysterious loving design that God kept mankind waiting. And that he came in the from of the most mysterious gift of a child.

Children do love surprises and the excitement of anticipation and having to wait. The suspense of waiting is part of the Christmas season.

Advent - these last few days - is an annual reminder that we are called to be people of hope and patience and expectancy , not only as we await the short few weeks of advent to celebrate Christmas , but that everything that happens happens in God's good time. and we also await to be reunited with our loved ones forever and God will come again to take us to be with Him.
God is our loving Father who knows what we need before we ask Him and who knows what is best for us.

There is a very clear link running through all the readings this Sunday and that is God’s promise to David that his lineage will produce an heir that will rule forever in the dim and distant future. This prophecy was 600 years in the fulfilment. All of Israel waited for a Messiah and yearned for the promised liberator and king to rule all nations from Israel. God was faithful to His promise to David beyond all imagining, that ‘I will be father to him and he a son to me’, and so in the fullness of time ‘God sent his Son born of a woman’ (Galatians). This is the great mystery hidden for the ages that St Paul speaks about in the epistle today.

This prophecy begins to be fulfilled in the ‘yes’ of Mary, who is aware of the prophecy, and that it is to be her son that will be the fulfilment of all the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a nation crying out for liberty. Mary is the mother of Israel’s liberation. The familiar beautiful scene which we now call the Annunciation is worth pondering. The angel goes into Mary’s house – there is a sense of heaven meeting earth – of a heavenly being ‘reduced’ as it were to the simple motion of physically walking into Mary’s home and extending a formal greeting like any visitor would. Gabriel’s news and invitation would change Mary’s life forever, and it was the pivotal point in our salvation. This scene is recalled millions of times each day in every Hail Mary, in the first Joyful Mystery, in every Angelus and in every recitation of the Creed, when ‘he was made man’ (incarnatus est).

Now we must place our minds and our lives in the mind, if we can, of the teenage girl Mary, who was being asked something so monumental it has changed the world. God was asking womb her to be the Mother of His Son – and it is mind-blowing for our tiny minds to imagine what God was actually proposing to Mary in this unique, unrepeatable event which we call the Incarnation.

Yet after the 600 year promise to Israel it would be another 9 months before Mary would set eyes on Him, and another 30 years before His voice would be heard by all the nation. God’s plan slowly unfolds.

Mary is the God-bearer, the bearer of the greatest gift of all time. She is carrying in her womb, God's gift of Himself.

As we ponder this scene so familiar to us, we must ask ourselves why this scene is presented to us as the last Sunday Gospel before the annual commemoration of the birth of Christ.
The words of the angel are meant for us too: ‘do not be afraid!’ ‘Listen’, ‘the Lord is with you’, and ‘nothing is impossible to God’.

•       God keeps His word, do I trust Him?
•       God keeps His promises, do I?
•       What am I afraid of?
•       What is so ‘impossible’ for me that is possible to God?
•       Does God want me to exercise patience because of His seeming slowness to act?
•       Do I believe God wants to intervene in my life, and do I let Him enter in?
•       What is God asking me to do as we prepare for his coming? What change(s) are required of me? What challenges, what new responsibilities lie ahead of me? Where is God leading me?

In these last few days of lists and rushing can I take time out to accept and be grateful that God had put me on His list of love, can I take time to thank him for the gift that He is to me!