Emmanuel, God-with-us

The Entrance Antiphon to today's liturgy states clearly that our "Lord and Ruler will be coming soon, and his name will be called Emmanuel, because he will be God-with-us."  Yesterday's Gospel was about the messenger of God, Gabriel, visiting Mary and telling her that she was to conceive and bear a son, that her son would be "great and will be called the Son of the Most High...and of his Kingdom there will be no end....The Holy Spirit will come upon you, [Mary,] and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.....[F]or nothing will be impossible for God."

In a few days we will celebrate that great moment when Mary gave birth to Jesus, to "Emmanuel, God-with-us."  God's plan for our salvation would not be thwarted or blocked in any way.  Even now, though it looks as though evil is triumphing in this world of ours, God's will for our salvation will not be thwarted. God will triumph in the world of today, as God triumphed when Herod sought to kill the infant Jesus. God also triumphed in Jerusalem during those three dark days of Jesus' arrest, condemnation, crucifixion and death.Three days later Jesus rose from the dead and continues to dwell among us, having returned to His Kingdom in heaven, from where He sent the Spirit to be our Advocate, to teach us all things that Jesus taught during his ministry here on earth.

Emmanuel, God-with-us, in the Eucharist! Emmanuel, God-with-us, in our sufferings and ultimately in our death and resurrection to new life in Christ Jesus.  Every day when we die to ourselves, to sin and selfishness, we give birth to Jesus and rise to new life in Christ Jesus.  God is with us just as God was with Mary and Joseph and all those who have gone before us, believing in Jesus, in God, living in their midst, dwelling in the core of their very beings.  From our core inner selves, our spirit selves, God radiates to the world in the good that we do, in the faith that we live!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Make a straight highway for our God (Is: 40:30)

Every mountain and hill [shall] be laid low (Is. 40:4) and every prince

Reduced “to nothing” (Is. 40: 23)

Redeeming the world from all that Is not of God.

Yaweh has “not spoken in secret in some darkened land…I, Yahweh speak with directness. I   express myself with clarity” (Is 42: 1).

 

COME “near ad listen, you nations, pay attention, you peoples.” (Is. 34: 1)

Here is “my servant whom I uphold” (Is: 42: 2),

Ransoming you from sinful ways. The One I sent

I  have endowed…with my spirit (Is. 42:1).

See,  “there is no other God besides me”  (Is. 44: 7);

There “is no other savior but me” (Is. 43:11).

My “name is Yahweh; I will not yield my glory to another” (42: 8)

And neither will I “yield…my honor to idols (Is 42: 8).

See, “I am Yahweh, unrivalled, I form the light and create the dark. I make good fortune and create calamity; it is I, Yahweh, who do all this….Let deliverance, too, bud forth which I, Yahweh, shall create” (Is. 45: 7-8).

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!