THE IMMANUEL


23 DECEMBER

1 Mal 3:1-4,23-24; Ps 25:4-5,8-9,10,14; Lk 1:57-66

Jesus, Immanuel, God with Us

The Church praises and invokes the coming Messiah as Immanuel, the prophetic name given to us by God through the prophet Isaiah. It is a name that denotes the messianic city of God and the relationship between God and the inhabitants or citizens of the city. Isaiah the prophet gave us the literal meaning of the name as ‘God-is-with-us.’ The prelude to the giving of the name connects it to the ancient sign of salvation of the woman and her offspring. What God revealed about the woman and her offspring implies that the city where God-is-with-us will be characterised by the divinely established enmity between the woman and the serpent, between her Offspring and its offspring. Thus, the city of Immanuel will be free of sin and every corruption of evil and works of darkness. This is made possible by the characterising awareness of the citizens, namely, that God is with us. This awareness is gendered and sustained by the Eternal Word that takes our human flesh and dwells among us. The Son to be born is therefore called Immanuel because he is the cause and support of the awareness that God-is-with-us. To lose this characterising awareness is to lose one’s citizenship of the mystical city of God and be in danger of being lost in the outer darkness where the demons and their coworkers suffer the fire of hell forever.

To prevent losing our citizenship in the messianic city, God promised to send the prophet Elijah to call back the erring souls and reconcile disunited families. The grace of the appearance of one in the spirit of Elijah is in view of the great and definitive coming of God among his people, for their salvation and glory. Malachi prophesied these great signs. “Look, I am going to send my messenger to prepare a way before me. And the Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple; and the angel of the covenant whom you are longing for, yes, he is coming, says the Lord of Host. Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears?” The huge and just demand of the appearance of the Lord requires the advanced preparation of the people in expectation of his coming. “Know that I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the day comes, that great and terrible day. He shall turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the hearts of children towards their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.” The purity expected of the citizens of the city of God is such that everyone in the city would be regarded as a priest or Levite, making acceptable offerings to the Lord. The sanctity of the citizens would make them as precious to the Lord as citizens of Judah and Jerusalem in the old dispensation.

The old Israel looked forward and expectantly to the realisation of these prophetic signs and events. Their expectation and vigilance for the coming of the prophet Elijah as an indicator of the time of fulfilment of the messianic promise was high when John the Baptist was born. The circumstances surrounding his birth made the people wonder if the time had come. “Now on the eight day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up. ‘No,’ she said, ‘he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘But no one in your family has that name’, and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they were all astonished. At that instant his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God.” If all these signs have been fulfilled, are we then aware that we are citizens of the city of God? Are we characterised by the awareness that God-is-with-us? Is the fact of God’s enduring presence within and around us, guiding our daily living and activities well known to us? If we are not certain of the answers to these fundamental questions, then the call is for us to wake up and ready ourselves by deepening our awareness of God’s presence with us. “Lord, make me know your ways. Lord, teach me your paths. Make me walk in your truth, and teach me: for you are God my saviour.”

O Immanuel, you are our king and our judge, the One whom the peoples await and their Saviour. O come and save us, Lord our God.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, as we see how the Nativity of your Son according to the flesh draws near, we pray that to us, your unworthy servants, mercy may flow from your Word, who chose to become flesh of the Virgin Mary and establish among us his dwelling, Jesus Christ our Lord. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.           

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BECOMING A DEPENDABLE FRIEND

Image
FRIDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 6:5-17; Ps 119:12,16,18,27,34-35; Mk 10:1-12 Making and being a Good Friend The usefulness of a faithful friend is the subject discussed in the passage of Sirach we are considering. From the qualities that make a good friend, we understand that faithfulness depends on the perfection we attain in the formative school of wisdom. The first lesson we learn in nature is faithfulness. The quality of faithfulness is so closely aligned with nature that we consider nature and faithfulness synonyms. The faithfulness of nature, and subsequently of wisdom, is hinted at when we read that wisdom stands at her post/gate daily to beckon the passers-by to turn in and partake of her table. Everything that God made participates in this faithfulness of wisdom in the sense that each remains faithful to his will without failing or leading our minds astray. First, Sirach admonishes us on friendliness to people in general: “A kindly turn of speech multiplies a ...
Read more

WE CANNOT ENTER INTO HEAVEN WITHOUT FAITH

Image
OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP  Isa 7:1-9; Ps 48:2-8; Mt 11:20-24 If you do not stand by Me, you will not stand at all The Lord Jesus Christ takes up the issue of rejecting or ignoring the Gospel message when it comes to us in the gospel reading today. The word of God contains all the blessings of heaven which God had given us in Christ before the beginning of the world. Hence, a rejection or refusal to accept or listen to the Gospel message is a rejection of all the heavenly blessings we have received in Jesus Christ. These divine blessings have import for our lives here on earth. While still dwelling here on earth, those who believe in the word of God already possess the heavenly inheritance God will fully manifest to us when we exit this mortal tent. By faith, we enter into the eternal kingdom and the promised inheritance. The importance of faith for our reception of the heavenly blessings here on earth is illustrated in the first reading...
Read more

The offsprings of the Old man and the New Man

Image
Monday, fifth week of lent/2024 Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP Offsprings of Old man and New Man To be able to live the new life within the new Covenant in Jesus Christ, the old life must come to an end. The distinctive difference between the old man and the new man is the focus of desires. The old man and all who live by him have their desires focussed on the satisfaction of self. On the other hand, the new man and those living by him desires only to fulfil God's holy will. Thus, the old man and his offspring obey the law of sin and death. Living for self alone breeds sins, and sin causes death. So, the old man and all living by him are dead and harbingers of death to others. They are adept at manipulating the Law of God to perpetuate their interest and selfish desires. An example of this skill is the treatment the two old judges of Israel in Babylon meted out to Susanna, wife of Joachim, employing the Law of Moses as given in the first reading. “Two elderly men had ...
Read more