4th Sunday of
Advent
'God has a name!'
Each evening, we Friars gather in our chapel, in front of the Blessed
Sacrament, for an hour of meditation and prayer, we pray the Divine Office: the
Prayer of the Church. Each evening, included in that prayer is Mary’s great
exclamation, the Magnificat…through which Mary proclaims the greatness of God
for having chosen her to be the one to bring forth Christ into the World. 
The God-human dynamic moves to a whole new level in Jesus Christ, to a
very personal and intimate level. St Francis, St Clare and St Bonaventure all
attest to the fact that it is Jesus to makes all things make sense. It is in,
through and with Him whom who all things were created and hold their being that
we can come to know God, ourselves, others and all of creation in a new and
refreshing way.
An antiphon is said before and after this and in the final days before Christmas these antiphons become a series of ‘O exclamations’ that speak of our wonder, our joy and our anticipation as we count down the days to the great feast of Christmas; the time when we enter into the great Mystery of God becoming human. The last of these, recited on the 23rd of December is ‘O Emmanuel…you are Our Kind and Saviour…O Come, and save us’ … but save us from what? Well, from ourselves really. What do I mean? Let me explain...
When we celebrate Christmas we are celebrating the fact that God took on
human form and dwells with us. In today’s Gospel, we hear the angel reassuring
Joseph and giving Joseph the name to call the child that is to be born ‘he is
to be called Jesus because he will save people from their sins’. I’m sure we
have head this line from scripture many times before however, if we pause for a
moment we can begin to realise just how earth shattering that sentence actually
is…His name will be Jesus…For the
first time, God has given us his name!
When Moses approached the burning bush and said to God ‘the people are
asking who you are, what should I tell them? God responded ‘tell them, I am who
am’…in other words, my name is unpronounceable to you. You see, when we know
somebody’s name…we can call him or her by it whenever we like, in a way, we
have a certain control over them. God has given us His name and invites us to
call Him by it whenever we like. In other words, he invites us into
relationship with him in a way never seen before. In the OT the covenant was
the relationship but in the Incarnation, what we celebrate at Christmas, Jesus
is the relationship.
Christ comes to us in love to save us from the fear and anxiety caused
by thinking that we are on our own and somehow disassociated from God, we are
not. God is with us, that’s the Good News! He saves us from ourselves because
we, as human beings, become afraid. Bishop Robert Barron in his excellent series
on Virtue and Vices says that ‘fear is at the root of all sinfulness’ because
when we live out of a place of fear we become bent over by pride, envy, greed
and all of the other big vices.
What is God’s message of salvation in all of this? Well maybe we can
listen to the angel, the messenger of God who in today’s Gospel, in fact ALL
angels in all of scripture, always greet those they encounter with the words …
do not be afraid. We can expand this message a little by saying ‘ do not be
afraid…I am with you…I know you…I love you and you are mine. Come to me…come
follow me…I am the living water…and I have come so that you can have life to
its fullest.’
The Saviour who is with us has come to lead us from darkness into
light, from a place of fear to a place of hope-filled trust. He comes gently,
humbly and constantly into a dark corner, of a small town, in a nondescript
part of the world, into the care of two refugees who have nothing and nowhere. Paradoxically,
it is they, Mary and Joseph, who are dependant upon him.
The crib teaches us the true meaning of humility as the antidote to
pride, of true hospitality as the antidote to envy and true giving as the
antidote to greed.
This is what Christmas is all about…this is what we are preparing for
and this is why the Church cries out these O antiphons this week…O Wisdom, O
Lord, O Root of Jesse, O King, O Key of the Nations, O Rising Sun, O Emmanuel.
So maybe this week, as we make our final practical preparations for
Christmas, we can also allow some time and space to prepare our hearts, minds
and souls to welcome, once more, the Light of the nations, the Hope of all
Peoples, The Joy of the World, The Word made Flesh, the one who has a name, and
that name is Jesus. Amen.
Brother Martin Bennett OFM Cap.
Vocations Promoter of the Irish Capuchin Franciscans.