HOMILY FOR FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT (A)

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. In my homily last Sunday, I pointed out that one of greatest sources of our joy is the joy of worship – of falling on our knees as a sign of awe and wonder before a mystery greater than ourselves; an encounter with a love, a truth, a goodness and a beauty that enraptures us and takes us beyond our own fears and desires. On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, we see how faith and trust in God does the very same.

In the Gospel, we meet Joseph who is plunged into a deep crisis because he discovers that his wife to-be, was pregnant with a child that was not his. In response to this crisis and fear, Joseph decides what needs to be done to set things right. But then God intervened in a dream, asking Joseph not to be afraid and to trust that these events were part of a bigger plan that extended beyond his own life and Mary’s too.

We see something similar with Mary herself and many other figures in the Bible. Mary was a young Jewish and devout woman who was engaged to be married. Then something extraordinary happened when it was revealed to her that she had been chosen to be the mother of the Messiah. Mary’s human and first reaction was fear. But again, like Joseph, Mary was asked not to be afraid and to trust in God’s bigger plan that did not remain with herself and her husband but extended to the whole of humanity. Notice how God’s Word brought by the angels does not impose an obligation on Mary and Joseph or even answer their questions. But it does address their fears, asking them to trust in obedience to the promises of God.

For both Mary and Joseph, a time of intense crisis and anguish was followed by an acceptance of God’s will that led to peace. In the first Christmas story, Mary and Joseph passed from fear to faith.

Friends, we all know the feeling of happily going along in life with our own plans and ideas of how life will go for us. But then the unexpected happens – a sickness, a diagnosis, a betrayal, the loss of a job, a disappointment, a death in the family. These are just some of the examples of things that might happen and do happen. What’s our first reaction when they do? It’s often fear. And when we are afraid, our first reaction can be to run from what we fear or else to fix what has gone wrong, as Joseph thought of doing on hearing of Mary’s pregnancy.

But like Mary and Joseph, we are called continually on a journey from fear to faith. We need to put our impulses of ‘flight or fix’ on hold and wait to listen to what God might be asking of us at that time. With Mary and Joseph, we learn that at especially at Christmas time, God understands our fears and addresses them directly. Fear can make us suspicious, grumpy, selfish and cynical. It can lock us into a defensive world where we guard tightly to what we have and what our own plans are. But when we learn to trust in God and his purposes for us, we begin to open up and pass from fear to faith like Mary and Joseph and many of the greatest saints of our Catholic tradition who were outstanding men and women of courage and strength. For them and for us, we realise that in God, our lives are not about us but about God’s purposes for us. God’s purposes for us are always greater than those we imagine for ourselves. This was true in the case of Mary and Joseph and it is true for us too.

It is often said how the opposite to love is hate. But in the Bible, the opposite to love is fear. That is why St John in his first letter writes that ‘perfect love drives out fear for no one who is afraid has come to perfection in love’ (1 John 4:18).

No one arrives at Christmas with a perfect life. There is a freedom is admitting that. So let us leave what is outside our control in the hands of God. Do not be afraid but trust in Emmanuel, the name which means God is with us, the God who promised to be with us always, until the end of time. With Mary and Joseph, let us pass from any fears we have to faith and to a full experience of the great joy announced by the angels on that first Christmas night.