4th Sunday in Advent (Cycle A) - Messiah from David's lineage

4th Sunday in Advent (Cycle A)

The Virgin Birth of the Messiah from David's lineage

(Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalm 24:1-7; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24)

God first promised the coming of the Messiah-Redeemer at the darkest point in salvation history. This promise offered hope for humanity’s redemption after Adam and Eve, our original parents, were deprived of the grace of perfect fellowship with their Divine Father and Creator. God cursed the serpent, Satan, who orchestrated the fall of humanity (Revelation 12:9) and provided the hope of future redemption (Genesis 3:15). The Lord foretold that a man, born from the "seed of the woman," would one day come to undo the work of Satan. He would arrive as God’s Redeemer-Messiah to restore humanity to the perfection of grace and covenant fellowship with the Lord God (1 John 3:8).

God set this divine plan in motion in the 10th century BC when He made an eternal covenant with His servant, King David. The Lord promised David that his throne and kingdom would last forever (2 Samuel 7:16; 23:5; 2 Chronicles 13:5; Sirach 45:25; Sirach 47:11/13). Throughout the centuries, God reiterated this promise through the prophets, asserting that the Redeemer-Messiah would come from David’s lineage to rule an eternal kingdom (e.g., Isaiah 11:1-5; Jeremiah 23:5-6; 33:15-16; Ezekiel 34:23-24; Zechariah 3:8; 6:12).

The First Reading comes from the book of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah. He told King Ahaz, a descendant of David, that one day a virgin would give birth to a son named "God-with-us" (Isaiah 7:14). This prophecy is echoed by St. Matthew in our Gospel Reading, who applies it to Mary of Nazareth, a descendant of David (Luke 1:32), and her son, Jesus (Matthew 1:22-23).

The Responsorial Psalm honours the invisible Divine King (Yahweh), present in the people’s liturgy of worship at the Jerusalem Temple. It serves as a reminder that our Divine King (Jesus) is also invisibly present in the Eucharist.

In our Second Reading, St. Paul identifies Jesus as the promised "King of Glory," previously foretold by God through His prophets in the holy Scriptures (Romans 1:2-4). Paul describes this as the "good news" of the gift of salvation.

In our Gospel reading, St. Matthew begins the story of Jesus’s birth with Joseph of Nazareth, who was betrothed to Mary when he discovered she was pregnant.

The Gospel of Matthew 1:18-24: Jesus is the Promised Emmanuel of Isaiah’s Prophecy. In verse 18, St. Matthew uses Jesus’s royal title, "Christos/Messiah," for the fourth time (see 1:1, 16, 17, 18). There is no doubt that Matthew is presenting Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Davidic Messiah. He begins the story of Jesus’s birth with Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary when he discovered that she was pregnant.

A betrothal in that time was not like a modern engagement. A couple became "betrothed," legally and morally bound to each other. However, they did not live together until the groom completed the necessary preparations to bring his wife home. If Joseph were to repudiate Mary, no other righteous Jewish man would marry her, leaving her shunned and ridiculed by the community. Thus, it was essential to God’s plan that Mary and her son receive the protection afforded by a legal marriage.

There are two theories regarding why Joseph decided to divorce Mary. One theory is that he already knew the child was the Messiah but did not consider himself worthy of fathering the Messiah-king. The second theory suggests that Joseph believed Mary had committed adultery; however, he wanted to spare her public shame by quietly setting her aside without charging her in a Jewish Law Court.

The key to understanding this passage lies in addressing how a Jew would define the term “righteous man” as described in verse 19. For every observant Jew, a "righteous man" was someone who lived according to the laws and expectations of their faith.

An answer to Joseph's dilemma came to him in a dream when the Angel of the Lord revealed God's plan. The angel's announcement follows a pattern seen in other notable births in the Bible. In the Old Testament, this pattern appears in the births of Isaac (Gen 17:19), Solomon (1 Chr 22:9-10), Josiah (1 Kng 13:3), and in Isaiah's prophecy about the virgin's son (Is 7:14-17). In the New Testament, we observe the same pattern in the announcements of the births of John the Baptist (Lk 1:11-17) and Jesus (Mt 1:20-21; Lk 1:31-33). These birth announcements typically follow this structure:

1. The announcement usually begins with the word "behold."

2. The child is named.

3. The child's identity is revealed.

The angel then made three significant statements to reassure Joseph that he should take Mary as his wife:

1. Joseph must finalise his marriage with Mary by taking her into his home.

2. Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

3. Joseph is to name the child Jesus.

According to the customs of the time, when a man named a child born to his wife or a woman with whom he had been intimate, he was declaring the child legally as his own. The angel’s command left no doubt in Joseph's mind that he was to be the child's legal father. He was instructed to give the child the name Yahshua in proto-Hebrew and Yehoshua in the Aramaic of Joseph's time. This name means "Yahweh saves" or "Yahweh is salvation." The angel further emphasises this by stating, "because he will save his people from their sins."

The angel defined the Messiah's mission as spiritual rather than political, clarifying that Jesus would be born to save humanity from their sins rather than from Roman oppression. The other biblical figure with the same name in the Old Testament was Joshua, Moses' successor, who was appointed by God to lead the Israelites across the Jordan River to begin their conquest of the Promised Land. Jesus’ spiritual mission mirrors that of the first Joshua: to bring salvation to humanity, guiding the redeemed across the great divide between life and death and into the Promised Land of Heaven.

The angel’s message in verses 22-24 is the first of St. Matthew's ten "fulfilment" formula statements. Each statement begins with "this was to fulfil," followed by a quote from the Old Testament or an allusion to several passages. St. Matthew's fulfilment statements are:

- Jesus' childhood: 1:23; 2:15, 17-18, 23

- Galilean ministry: 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35

- Jesus' last week in Jerusalem: 21:4-5; 27:9-10

These ten fulfilment statements illustrate that everything God did in the Old Testament was part of His divine plan in preparation for the Advent of the Messiah.

St. Matthew’s message conveys that God announced His divine plan through His prophets, and that this plan is now being fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah. In his first fulfilment statement (1:23), St. Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, which states: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means 'God is with us.'" Matthew wants his readers to understand that Jesus is more than just a mere human when he writes: "For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her." In other words, he was conceived "by the Holy Spirit without human seed" (Lateran Council of 649), and He is the "Emmanuel/God with us" foretold by the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah and Matthew identified the son born of the virgin by the title "Emmanuel/Immanuel," which means "God with us." Jesus affirms that He is "God with us" at the end of St. Matthew's Gospel when He gives His disciples the power to baptise for eternal salvation (Mt 28:19) and assures them: "And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Mt 28:20).

When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. The angel’s message confirmed that Mary was the virgin destined to give birth to the promised Davidic Messiah. Joseph demonstrated his faith and obedience to God by immediately taking Mary into his home.