“The Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”

            In 733 B.C., the King Ahaz of Judah was stuck between the warring states of Damascus and Assyria. The northern Jewish kingdom, Israel, chose the losing side, Damascus, while Ahaz aligned the southern kingdom, Judah, with Assyria, the ultimately dominant power. Ahaz’s alliance with Assyria saves the southern kingdom, including Jerusalem, from exile for two hundred years, but at a great price. The most important condition of the alliance with Assyria was setting up an altar to the Assyrians’ god in the Jewish Temple.

            During Ahaz’s vacillations over which side to choose, the prophet Isaiah comes to him with a stern warning to keep his trust in the Lord rather than in foreign princes. Ahaz tries to ignore him, but Isaiah insists that he should ask for a sign that the prophet’s message is true. Ahaz’s refusal to tempt the Lord is not an act of faith; he just wants Isaiah to go away, for the primacy of faith not to intrude on his political dealings.

            Isaiah responds with the mysterious prophecy of the virgin birth: “The Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.” What this has to do with King Ahaz’s decision between which king’s protection to accept (or whether to rely instead on God) is not explained, and really makes little sense at all.

            Isaiah also appears today in the entrance antiphon: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One.” After this episode with King Ahaz, the Book of Isaiah continues to prophecy the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the people of Judah into exile by the Babylonians two hundred years after Ahaz’s fateful choice. He has bought them some time, but abandoning the Lord and setting up the abomination of pagan worship in the Temple catch up with them eventually. Isaiah laments the loss of the holy city, just as the Psalmist insists that he cannot sing the Lord’s praises in a foreign land: “your holy city is made a wilderness, Sion is deserted, Jerusalem is desolate.”

            But amidst the desolation, there is also a prophecy of hope: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people; For your salvation will suddenly come … Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One.”

            By the time of our Lord’s birth, the inhabitants of Jerusalem had returned and were working to rebuild the Temple, but they knew it was all a sham. Their presence came at another great price, Roman domination, and a puppet king, Herod, who wasn’t even Jewish. Isaiah’s plaintive and mournful plea still resounded in their hearts. The night was coldest and darkest right before the dawn.

            Modern scholars have found historical contexts for almost all the prophecies in the Old Testament, like the Assyrian or Babylonian conquests. But none have ever found any contemporary source for Isaiah’s prophecy of the Virgin Birth of the one to be called, “God saves.” It remained a mystery, waiting to be fulfilled. In the Blessed Mother’s conception of the Son of God made man, Jesus Christ, the heavens drop down dew in the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit that comes upon Her, and the earth brings forth a savior in that a human person, Mary, gives Him the human nature drawn from the clay of the earth in Genesis, in which God formed Adam out of the ground and breathed life into him.

            But we should wonder, if the prophecy says that they will call Him Emmanuel, why do they name Him Jesus? The two names are related, but not exactly the same. Emmanuel means, “God is with us,” while Jesus (Jeshua) means, “YHWH saves.” We hear Gabriel today tell Joseph, “you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” On the one hand, this is a lofty mission, because only God can forgive sins. But on the other hand, it seems to ignore Israel’s concrete sufferings of oppression and impoverishment. “The promise of forgiveness of sins seems both too little and too much: too much, because it trespasses upon God’s exclusive sphere; too little, because there seems to be no thought of Israel’s concrete suffering or its true need for salvation” from oppression (Ratzinger, 43).

            But here we see precisely the way that Christ saves us from our sins: by being with us. He has come to be with us. From the very first moment of His conception in the virgin womb, He has been with us. Before He has done anything, He has been. He has entered all our sufferings and sadness when He drew from His virgin Mother the same human nature that courses through our veins: “Unless She would give Him the capacity for suffering, He could not suffer. He could only feel cold and hunger and thirst if She gave Him her vulnerability. … He could not know the indifference of friends or treachery or the bitterness of being betrayed unless She gave Him a human mind and a human heart. This is what it meant to Mary to give human nature to God. He was invulnerable; He asked her for a body to be wounded. He was joy itself; He asked her to give Him tears. He was God; He asked her to make Him man” (Houselander, p. 73).

            At the Last Supper, in His high priestly prayer to the Father, Christ will pray for His closest friends: “Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me.” Christ is coming, first and foremost, to be with us. He redeemed us not only on the Cross and through His Resurrection, but in every event of His whole earthly life. And just as He has come to be with us, He desires that you also will be with Him. Not to do something, but first to be, to be with Him.

            This is our goal for these last days of Advent preparation, and for our celebrations of His birth: To be with Him. Whether alone or in a crowd, filled with joy or filled with sorrow, to be with Him, as He has come to be with us; to be filled with the longing of Israel, to feel the weight of the ancient curse of sin, knowing that He has come to set you free by first of all, being with you.

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

IV Sunday of Advent, A.D. MMXXV

Benedict XVI. Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives. Image Books, 2012.

Caryll Houselander. The Reed of God.