Sunday 18th December 2022 - The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 7:10-14 / Psalm 23(24) / Romans 1:1-7 / Matthew 1:18-24

We find ourselves today at the fourth Sunday of Advent in a sombre mood. It is challenging to be looking forward with joy to the celebration of Christmas and the hope of Jesus returning when we, as a close-knit island community, have been engulfed in tragedy. The tragedy of the loss of three lives at sea and at least nine in the Pier Road explosion. The two questions that come out of tragedy are often why? And how? The why can be a great challenge to our faith. God is the definition of love and all he does is good. So why do bad things happen?

The how can often be easier to establish. This will hopefully be revealed by the various investigations taking place. The hope is in such situations that the answers to the how question will ensure that the same situations can be avoided in the future.

The why question is harder to answer but we live in a created world that has a lifespan, it had a beginning, and it will have an end. Our own physical lives have a beginning, at our conception, and from that moment it is a reality that we will have to face an end to this life here. For some there will be a long, full, and happy life but for many others it can be hard and sometimes painful, and it can be tragically cut short. This is the nature of things because we live a finite life in a dynamic environment. However much we develop medications and cures for this or that ailment we will succumb to the end of this life sooner or later. The tragedies we have seen here have a deep impact not only on those close to the lost but on the wider community. We should not forget that the tragedy of loss is happening daily and has just as great an impact on those close to it but without the shock of it rippling out through the community.

The first reading and Gospel today talk of Jesus as Immanuel a name which means ‘God is with us.’ I have been asked directly this week, where is your God? I can sometimes ask myself the same question.

In this church, and indeed many of our churches, the cross with the image of Jesus suffering on it is a stark contrast to the image of the baby in a manger in our crib scenes at Christmas. On Christmas day we will have an image of the baby Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, just here overlooked by the event which occurred just thirty-three years later when that same Jesus died so desolately on the cross.

When we remember that this baby was in fact God who became human, born of Mary, brought up by his mother and Joseph, who lived as one of us within the realm that he had created we can start to appreciate that God is indeed Immanuel. God who is not only with us but knows exactly what it is like to live as one of us in this fallen world. Jesus was the embodiment of love, justice, and peace and yet he was cruelly tortured and put to death. If Jesus can live, suffer, and die like this is it any wonder that we ourselves might have to suffer to a greater or lesser extent?

In my search for answers to the questions raised these last days I was struck by a passage from the opening to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Paul writes, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, a gentle Father and the God of all consolation, who comforts us in all our sorrows, so that we can offer others, in their sorrows, the consolation that we have received from God ourselves. Indeed, as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so, through Christ, does our consolation overflow’. Paul is saying that if the sufferings of Jesus on the cross overflow to us then so do the consolations of the resurrection and the promise of eternal life it brings.

When we are suffering, we can look to the cross and know that Jesus is with us and intimately aware of what it is like to suffer in our physical lives. Jesus went through it leading the way for us to follow into a new and everlasting life, the life God created us for. The world today can put too much emphasis on this physical life. A life that, however clever humanity gets, will always let us down in the end. Our faith allows us to look beyond life here and once again I look to Paul to comment on this in the First Letter to the Corinthians when he says, ‘If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are the most unfortunate of people’.

We hear and respond to the phrase ‘The Lord be with you’ often during Mass but what does it mean to us? It reminds us that Emmanuel, God, is truly with us, and it should encourage us to deepen our relationship with him. During good times it is easier to experience the presence of God amongst us as it was for the community that Matthew was writing his Gospel for. It was harder for Ahaz and his people of the Old Testament who were suffering a prolonged pilgrimage through the desert. Whatever the circumstances we find ourselves in we can be assured that God is with us either in the wilderness or in green pastures. God is with us today in our gathering here in Church, in his word as we listen to the readings, and especially in the Eucharist, but he is with us in many other ways. God is with us in his creation, in friends and neighbours and in everyone we meet. In times of crisis, we see God working through many people. Those working in the direct aftermath of a disaster, those working on the periphery of such an event, those supporting and caring for the suffering and bereaved. God’s compassion flows out from him through us his creations. There are many ways that God is with us in our daily lives we just need to be open to appreciating his presence in and around us.

Even in the midst of disaster we can look forward to the promise that Christmas brings. A promise that however hard life here becomes we have a God who is with us and knows what we go through. We can still prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus and look forward in faith, hope and love to his return. It is right to look forward to the celebration of Christmas because it gives us the hope we need in times of adversity. O come, O come, Immanuel.

God Bless Brendan.