Well here we are at the end of Advent already, the shortest Advent we can possibly have, and if you have been following along with the daily readings, you might recall that this is the 4th time we have heard this exact same Gospel, the story of the Annunciation. I heard that fact somewhere, but I didn’t believe it, so I went back and counted and it’s true, 4 times in 22 days.
Clearly this Gospel is very important in preparing us for Christmas, but one important consideration is the first reading that goes along with it. The first reading was different each of the 4 times, and that first reading really helps us to understand what the Church wants us to take away as we wrap up our Advent preparation.
In that first reading, the important part is at the end when we hear God say to King David, in about the year 1000 BC: “And when your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever.”
This is a prophecy of the Messiah, all Jews knew that the Messiah would come from David’s family tree, they just didn’t know when.
So in the Gospel today, when it says “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary” - this little detail “of the house of David” is extremely important, because it situates the Messiah in the line of David, just as prophesied about a thousand years earlier.
They had been waiting one thousand years! And it looked pretty bleak for awhile, David’s house pretty quickly fell out of power, Israel was divided, then captured by other countries, then returned, but it seemed hopeless for a while. The people of God felt really abandoned.
That all changed when Gabriel appeared to Mary saying, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Finally, the Messiah, the King they had been waiting for was arriving, just as promised, through the most unexpected and unlikely of a source.
Have you ever felt abandoned by God?
I think about my last year, year and a half, and it has been difficult. More difficult than most of you even know for me, and the big one, of course, is my mom’s sudden death. And you know how much I’ve talked about the healing ministry over the last few years, with all the healings I’ve seen you probably sensed without me needing to say it that my dad and I prayed non-stop over my mom for healing, but to no avail.
Did God abandon me and my family while He seemingly healed everyone else?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 484, says this about the Annunciation: The Annunciation to Mary inaugurates “the fullness of time,” the time of the fulfillment of God’s promises and preparations.
So what does that tell us? Well it is important for us to remember this because sometimes in our lives we can feel like God has abandoned us, or forgotten us, or maybe we thought that He was going to do something and He didn’t do it, that He has broken His promises to us.
The reality is that God doesn’t abandon us. He never abandons us. He never breaks His promises. And exhibit A to testify to that is His promise to David. Against all odds and against all appearances, where it looks like He has broken it, He comes in in the mystery of the incarnation and not only fulfills it, but transcends even the wildest imagination of what the Jewish people could’ve ever expected about what this kingdom and this son of God will be like.
Because what He’s giving us in Jesus Christ is the eternal son of God come as man, in order to save us not just from our political enemies, but to save us from sin and death, and to establish a kingdom that is not earthly, but heavenly, and that will last for all eternity. God did not abandon my family, we trust Mom is with Him in eternity, where we all want to be! Despite the hardship, it drew us closer to God and allowed us to trust in Him even more than before.
As we turn to Jesus in the Eucharist, we recognize God has not abandoned us, no matter how bad things seem, how bleak it is, how little hope we have, our God is with us, He loves us. We keep praying for healing. We keep praying for more of His presence. Our prayers are not always answered the way we would like, but our God is still with us through it all.