Dec 18, 2022
4th Sunday of Advent
Ahaz refuses, saying he will not tempt the Lord which seems almost like a proper and noble response yet Isaiah replies:
Is it not enough for you to weary people, must you also weary my God?
Clearly, Ahaz’s response was NOT OK! I wondered why so I looked into his history a bit. Wow! To put it mildly, I think Ahaz made Santa’s all-time top 100 naughty list! Ahaz’s father was King Jotham who was one of the good kings of Judah of the northern kingdom. The kingdom that held the lineage of King David. Ahaz, his son, was not a good king of Judah.
Let’s look at some of Ahaz’s deeds:
He allied with the pagan king of Assyria
Created a pagan altar just like the king of Assyria had
Because of the pagan altar, Ahaz desecrated the true temple with sacrifices to the gods of Damascus on this new altar
He moved the altar of the Lord to the side to make way for this pagan altar
Ahaz removed the royal entryway of the temple and the Sabbath canopy as well. He also destroyed the temple furnishings
The worst of the worst, Ahaz also sacrificed some of his VERY OWN children to these pagan gods.
Now I might not always agree with my own children but Ahaz leveled that one up a bit.
So God’s response in reprimanding Ahaz for refusing to ask for a sign was, warranted. Of course, it was, He’s God after all! Ahaz was refusing to ask for a sign from the one true God because he would rather trust in the pagan gods for his signs and for his help. Ahaz let the earthly power of the Assyrians and their false gods get in the way of the one true God and the sign that was given to him in the form of the prophet Isaiah.
In our Gospel today, we hear of Joseph, a righteous man who got a sign from God as well in the form of an angel. Joseph heeded the sign. This was the very sign that Isaiah told Ahaz about.
Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.
Joseph humbly did as the Lord commanded him. I think Joseph is probably on Santa’s all-time top 100 nice list!
Did you know that from time to time God sends signs to us as well? Our signs are usually much more subtle and filled with far less flair!
For example, we set up our Christmas tree a few weeks ago as the Advent season began. Before putting on ornaments, we noticed it appeared to block our door much more than last year. My son noted that we have a smaller, skinnier tree in the basement. No, I replied, this was all I saw down there and it’s already there and all plugged in and set up. I just didn’t feel like hauling up another tree after hauling this one back down. He was persistent and, of course, he was correct, we did have a smaller tree, one that didn’t block our access to the exit door so much. I’m slowly learning not to doubt my kids or my wife anymore, s-l-o-w-l-y learning. The bonus was my son also swapped the trees for us.
That oversized tree took away some of the peace in our house. The peace to know that we have a safe way out in an emergency. Our only other exit would be through the kitchen and, the way we cook in our house that is the likeliest place for a fire! Anyway, that got me thinking, what bigger things do we have in life that block our access to the door to the Prince of Peace? Do we overdo all the shopping and spending and celebrating the Christmas season? What I mean by overdoing those things is that we sometimes can place those things above Christ. We try to be the perfect parent who takes our family to all those Christmas shows and light displays and stores. In our hustle to find that perfect gift we sometimes overlook the perfect gift that we have right here at Mass, the Word made Flesh. The gift of Jesus Christ. The gift of our salvation. The Prince of Peace.
One concrete way we can gain back that peace that Christ wants us to have is the sacrament of confession. If you haven’t been a month, a year, a decade or even fifty years go! Recently I was at a women’s retreat helping my wife and there were over 150 women there. After the talks, one woman came up to us and told us she had a bad confession experience over 50 years ago and hadn’t gone to confession since then. She told us she went on the day of the retreat and it felt as though the weight of the world was lifted off her shoulders. This Christmas allow Jesus to give the gift of His forgiveness.
If I may quote Dicken’s famous work a Christmas Carol:
“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have labored on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”
If you have such a weight, such a ponderous chain then go to the sacrament of confession, remove the weight of that chain and allow the peace of Christ to flood back into your life!
St. Gianna Molla agreed with me, or perhaps, I agree with her as she said:
"In order to bring true peace back to my soul, the only way that there exists on the Earth is Confession, because Jesus awaits me with His immense heart".
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