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Third Week of Advent - Saturday
December 18, 2004
Joseph, son of David, have no fear about taking Mary as your wife. It is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived this child. She is to have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
Matthew 1: 20-21
Yahweh Saves
Jesus of Nazareth was born of a people who had a long tradition of expectation. In their collective memory was a brief period of national ascendency of the house of David, followed by a long history of hopes and disappointments of its restoration. In Jesus' own time the hope was as strong as ever that an Anointed One would rise up from the house of David to throw off foreign domination and restore the fortunes of the nation. Jesus was that Anointed One from David's line, and he did fulfill the promises that God had made to this people. But he was not what they expected, and except for a few, they rejected him.
The new tradition of Christianity that followed Jesus has also had its expectations. Every age of Christians has tried in some way to refashion Jesus to its own liking. Down through the centuries Christians have tried to place every conceivable cause under the banner of Christ. Such efforts continue today. But Jesus cannot be changed. He remains the fulfiller of God's promises. He is and always will be what his name implies. The name Jesus means Yahweh saves. Jesus was sent into the world for the sole purpose of saving God's people from their sins. And that is what he did.
Jesus did not come into the world to create a new world order, or to teach a new philosophy or a new moral code, or to effect far-reaching social change, or even to start a new religion. He came into the world to save us from our sins, and to open the way to eternal life.
I do not have any greater need than to be saved from my sins. I will be in the bondage of sin until the day I die. I was born under the curse of original sin, that tendency I share with all humanity to rebel against God and put my will ahead of his. I cannot free myself from this propensity toward sin no matter how hard I try. Only God can save me from it. Only God who created me can make me into a new creation with a new heart open to his love and a new spirit eager to do his will. God has begun this new work of creation in me, but it is far from complete. So for now I remain in sin.
Jesus laid down his life to seal the promise of our salvation. He gives us his assurance that if we remain faithful, he will bring to completion the work of our salvation. He invites us to follow him, to journey with him in faith and humility to his Father's house, where all things will be restored in eternity, and we will live in peace.
O Antiphon
Come,
Leader of ancient Israel,
Giver of the Law of Moses on Sinai,
Rescue us with your mighty power!
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