Reflections for the 4th Sunday of Advent from “First Impressions”
/“FIRST IMPRESSIONS”
4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT (B) DEC. 24, 2023
2 Samuel 7: 1-5,8b-12,14a,16 Ps 89 Romans 16:25-27 Luke 1:26-38
by Jude Siciliano, O.P. <jude@judeop.org>
It is the final Sunday of Advent. Before we focus on today’s readings did you notice the pattern or themes of the Sunday Gospels over the four weeks? The pattern is the same in each of the Sundays of our three-year cycle.
The first Sunday of Advent always has an apocalyptic theme. This year it was from Matthew (13:33-37). “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.” So Advent opens with caution and uncertainty about the Parousia -- the second coming of the Lord.
Our second Sunday featured John the Baptist and his call to us to, “Prepare the way of the
Lord, make straight his paths!”
Staying with this year’s Advent Gospels, the third Sunday (John 1:6-8, 19-28) also has John the Baptist, but he is denying his authority and highlights, “The one who is coming after
me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”
Which brings us to today’s fourth and final Advent gospel. This gospel usually is about details right before Jesus’ birth. Today’s is from Luke (1:26-38) and is the evangelists account of the Annunciation. Knowing the pattern of these Sunday gospel can help worshiper hear and respond to the good news they contain for us now.
Today’s first reading from 2 Samuel, points to the dangers of religion becoming institutionalized and fixed in brick and mortar, stained glass and flower arrangements. When the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, God traveled with them and dwelt in their midst in the “meeting tent.” God wasn’t limited to one place made by human hands, but moved in the hearts and faith of the people. But now Israel was going through a comfortable period of peace and prosperity with its enemies vanquished and king David ensconced in a comfortable palace. He had led his people from being a loose assembly of tribes to a politically stable nation. Now he wants to bring the ark of the covenant from its tent dwelling to a temple he considers suitable for
God. He probably also hopes the elaborate temple he has in mind will show that the nation has arrived; these are a people of some importance. Seems to make sense, doesn’t it? But, David needs to be reminded who’s in charge. God was the one who took the lowly shepherd boy David (“from the pasture and from the care of the flock”) and made him king of Israel. God, not David, was the reason for Israel’s success and God will be the one to give them peace and protection from their enemies. Since God was the reason for their past success God, not David, will see to their future as well.
Our relationship with God is alive, flexible and growing. This kind of relationship challenges us to see God moving with us through our lives and giving us opportunities for a growth in faith. Some people still worship the God they knew as children, a God frozen in the past and
recalled with romantic images and spoken to with prayers that may no longer reflect current realities. David wants to build God a fixed dwelling; God will have none of it. The true “house of God” is established by God (“...God will establish a house for you”) and moves with us through our lives and the lives of our descendants, helping us face the challenges desert was out different stages of our lives present. God had a much better idea than David. David’s son Solomon would get to build the temple, but it would be destroyed, the people scattered and taken into exile. Away from their land and with their temple destroyed, they would have no need for a God fixed in some former place. What they needed was a traveling God who could accompany them in their travail to a foreign land and then lead them once again to freedom.
It’s a very human instinct, to want to build a temple for God. Of course a believing community needs a place to worship, we are not the ancient Israelites traveling through the wilderness with a portable temple that can be set up and taken down as the community moves. But the reading does place a caution before us “temple builders.” When we build the temple, we will determine its dimension. We will image God in it; maybe even make God in our own image and likeness. (God may look white and male, if that’s what the ones in charge of the design look
like.) A comfortable community may also want to have an image of a comfortable looking God in its temple, one that does not look like it will upset the status quo. We will also build the walls; keeping some out and shielding ourselves from outside influences. We will build doors, locate the entrance points into the temple, lay down rules for admission, welcome folks like us, but make others feel uncomfortable as they pass through. Such are the dangers of temple building.
God reminds David that God has “destroyed all your enemies.” Tomorrow is Christmas. What “enemies” can God help us deal with these days? The “enemies of the season” are many. For example, we carry idealized pictures in our heads of what a “merry Christmas” should look like -- the Hallmark card version. Very few, if any, of us can match that image, either from our past, or our present. God will help us work with the realities we face, and will be born among us in the real-life scenes of our daily lives. God will help us deal with the loneliness some of us experience in this season; God will travel with us in that wilderness. God will be the assurance we need as we feel so inadequate for the way this season is advertised -- a jolly time of “good will towards all.” God will also feed our hunger to see Jesus born again among us after so many half-hearted attempts on our part for renewal and re-commitment to
faith.
Which moves our attention to the gospel reading and the announcement of the birth of the descendant of David, Jesus, whose “kingdom will have no end.” The gospel shows that God did exactly what God had always wanted to do, build a temple in human flesh and pitch another “meeting tent” among us. This temple would be lasting, mobile and the sure place of encounter with our God. God chooses to dwell right in our midst, as a human descendant of David. Mary is asked to help fulfill God’s ancient plan to establish the house of David forever. When Mary asks how all this will happen, she is assured that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” There it is--- the language of the Exodus. God’s cloud guided the people in the desert and rested on the “meeting tent” (Exodus 40: 35). This is the God we worship here today, the One who travels with us and rests upon us here in our prayer assembly and then guides our way during the week as we continue our desert travels.
We are very close to Christmas now. It isn’t just in the calendar date; you can hear it in the readings today. God’s promise of a permanent resting place with us is being fulfilled. And where will this God be found? Not in the places of power and world influence; but among those
of David’s line, who have known the powerful works of God in their lives. Just as David was instructed to look back and see how God had worked in his and the nation’s life, so we look back and see how God’s hand strengthened us when we were floundering across a difficult desert time. God guided us when we wandered, strengthened us when we faltered and consoled us when we wept.
Who are we gathered here at this Sunday worship? We are descendants of David, in Jesus Christ, who have known the same God who addressed David and who says to us too, “I have been with you, wherever you went....” We are the temple David wanted to build; our lives are also the unique works of art that cover its walls. Together we form a dwelling place for God on earth, a “meeting tent” where others can find God’s presence.
AN ADVENT POEM
MONEY ORDER ANGELS
With fingers seamed in sweet potato dirt
the migrant farm workers
count out new hundred dollar bills
for money orders
by the clerk.
When the winged god
of the U.S. Postal Service
scatters those bills across Mexico,
children have shoes and notebooks for school
beans and a chicken on Sunday
Grandmother gets new teeth
and wives smile at husband memories.
Like an Advent Angel
announcing that this birth counts
that someone can be counted on
the money orders fly
on filaments of faith
to brighten
barest rooms
Christmas blessings!
Sr. Evelyn Mattern
