2551AFC121925 – And now He is ours. ← PODCAST LINK 😀
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Isaiah 7:13-14 – 13 Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
Psalm 24:1-2 –
1 The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;
2 for he has founded it on the seas,
and established it on the rivers.
Romans 1:5 – 5 … through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name
We should have known better. We should have been ready. It’s Gospel Adelphos! I’m sure you remember this:
Matthew 1:18-24 – The Birth of Jesus the Messiah 18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”(↔ Music Link)
which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife
“That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.” Actually, that’s history which is, as you know, His Story. Thanks to the intermediation of the Holy Spirit, the aid of Angels, and the fiat – unqualified YES – of some willing believers, Yeshua bar Yosef (Aramaic), Yeshua ben Yosef (Hebrew), Ἰησοῦς ὁ τοῦ Ἰωσήφ {Iēsous ho tou Iōsēph}, (Greek) Iesus filius Iosephi (Latin), came into the World for us. For us. That is what the World called him while he sojourned in Egypt and worked with his foster-dad in the construction business. When he grew up and started his ministry, they called him Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος (Iēsoûs ho Nazōraîos), meaning “Jesus the Nazarene” or “Jesus of Nazareth.”
Those were the “PC” names for him. Many people, after hearing what he had to say about what his Father in Heaven wanted and how his Father in Heaven planned to make full reparation for the sins of all humanity, they called him much more derogatory names like crazy, demon-master, heretic, sinner, and criminal. That last one got him killed in a very brutal way. About 55 days after we celebrate Christmas, we will begin the season of Lent, and we will then here “the rest of the story.” But today I want to go back to the words, “He came into the World for us. For us.”
He is ours for the taking, for the keeping, for the Loving, for the Praising, for the present, for the future, for Eternity, because God says so. That is what we celebrate during Advent, Jesus is here – with us, in us, for us … if indeed we welcome him as our personal Lord and Savior, and as The Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:9-11 – [1] (GNT) 9 But you do not live as your human nature tells you to; instead, you live as the Spirit tells you to—if, in fact, God’s Spirit lives in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Now, let’s pay attention to the common link between the story of Advent and the story of our Lives.
Who moved over the face of the abyss? Who called upon Wisdom to include in Creation all that is Good? Which Entity is formed by the Love between the Son and the Father? About whom was the Angel speaking when he said,“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born [of you] will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”
Well, I guess I gave it away in that last question. The common link is the Holy Spirit. Who else is linked to, for, and by the Holy Spirit? Yeppers! You and I are linked to the Holy Spirit, to our Father in Heaven, to our Lord Jesus, to Our Mother Mary, to each other, and all of that BIG, HUGE agglomeration is called the κκλησία (ekklesia), the People called together. The Assembly of People called together for a purpose, a reason, A CHURCH.
Where and how did all of this start? We all know that “In the Beginning …” is the answer, and every possible tidbit and scintilla of Creation began to appear. That is why the Psalmist could say “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it. Some of those tidbits and scintillae included all of the Earthlings past, present, and future, and the babe lying in a manger came to make reparation for every single one of us!
Adelphos, when we receive The Son, we walk in faith founded in the Hope and Grace that is Jesus, The Christ of God who is sent to us out of sheer Love from Our Father in Heaven. It is the most significant Gift from our Creator – the Gift of Grace. Grace is unmerited favor, a participation in the Life of God who alone can reveal himself through his inspired and infallible B.I.B.L.E. by which he helps us discover his Absolutely Perfect Plan. That plan has the Goal of the restoration of Union with God at that last Divine Objective in the APP – literally Heaven on Earth – except it is a NEW Heaven and Earth. It is the status, the state of being, for which every Christian yearns – for God to dwell among us in that Place with Many Mansions.
To get to those Mansions we must all go through our own Calvary which is our postern to being alive without our earthly flesh. We have previously considered CCC 1020-1021 – the Particular Judgment. I want to include a short excerpt from The Catechism of the Catholic Church in section CCC 1427-1433, specifically paragraph 1431 – Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time, it entails the desire and resolution to change one’s life, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of his Grace. (↔ Music Link) This conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart). 24. Cf. Council Of Trent (1551): DS 1676-1678; 1705; Cf. Roman Catechism, II,V,4.
I include that here because that is a very detailed, vivid, and accurate description of something we often speak of here: METANOIA, Greek for change of mind, a U-turn back to God (Hebrew: Teshuva, to return 180°) That is the “radical reorientation,” a powerful epiphany that returns our gaze upon God and not on the World. It takes that momentous about-face to convict of us our sinfulness and sin (one is inherited, one is volitional) and that realization should lead us to conversion again. Through that conversion, we are able to rejoin the Divine Community so that our participation in the earthly community is filled with the Beatitude of Grace. That Particular Grace renews in us the hunger and thirst for the righteousness always available to us as the Eucharist if we remain in a state of Grace. Therefore we ask God to create a new heart within us, a heart that understands and emulates the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a heart that suffers Love for us despite our brokenness.
What a GOOD God we have! Through that Grace of conversion and reconciliation, our conversion – in fact ALL conversions – comes through repentance and we are no longer “stuck” in our own concupiscence. Grace helps us to be “unstuck.” We no longer nurture and protect our hearts of stone, but instead allow the Holy Spirit to foster in us a Heart of Truth re-formed into a heart like the heart of Jesus, a heart radiating Love even while suffering the losses with which the World constantly surrounds us. Each of us knows, however, it’s not “Once And Done.” The more we align our lives with the life of Christ, the more we see how broken we are. I have sometimes said that I could go through repentance and conversion daily, even hour-by-hour, moment-by-moment. (↔ Repeat Music Link) THAT makes me impatient.
We must understand, though, that patience is not necessarily procrastination. Procrastination is impatience; it is selfish, prideful because we are valuing our worldly time as more important than God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan for our time. At those moments of metanoia that designate each step closer to Heaven, we glimpse our Lives through the eyes of Jesus. At first, it is like looking through a window; we can see there might be a future for us because “The Truth Is Out There,” but we cannot see the face of Christ. Gradually, and repeatedly, we find ourselves looking into a mirror. At first, confusedly, because the darkness of the World’s future clouds our vision. But then, in lightning-like flashes we see ourselves in a smudgy mirror, and as we focus our Life’s God-given vigor, we can eventually see that it is not merely a window, not a mirror, not even a portrait, but actually the Glorified Christ whom we have been seeking there. Now THAT is pretty radical!! I see not only Jesus, but also the Jesus in me. That eye-opening Revelation is presented to us in this Season of Joy as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
Is it too little for [us] to weary mortals, that [we] weary [our] God also? Did we not receive him as The One through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name? Joseph did indeed hear the Angels say for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Isaiah (See 7:14) chided Ahaz and told him a maiden – a young woman of marriageable age – הָעַלְמָ֗ה hā-‘al-māh, would conceive in her womb a child who would be the Son of God. She said yes, and then joined Our Father in Heaven to give Jesus to us always, and forever and ever. Now. Right now. Right now HE is mine, he is yours, he is ours. HE is Emmanual – God With Us.
Names are important, just ask Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and Belteshazzar whether or not names are important. What we do says who we are because actions speak louder than words, and in Prophecy one’s name is one’s destiny. OUR name is Christian. Are we living up to our name and our namesake? Might there be another moment of metanoia right around the corner now that he is ours? She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. That is his name – Yeshua – and since that day in Bethlehem, but he shall be called Emmanuel, which means, “God is with us.” He is with us indeed. He is ours. Belovéd, that mean also that we are HIS! For that, we REJOICE! And Praise ever in joyful song! (↔ Music Link)
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
