The birth of Jesus

It’s the fourth Sunday of Advent and there’s only three more days till Christmas, so today’s Gospel reading is already about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Few Christians today realize the impact, the meaning and the magnitude of this divine event. For instance, how many of our readers have thought that the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ came at the crossroads of time? All events before the birth of Christ is called BC or Before Christ, while the years after Christ is called Anno Domini or AD. That’s how significant is the birth of our Lord as it affects all people’s even non-Christians.

More importantly, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise that he made as far as we read in Genesis 3:15 right after the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve when God discovered that Adam and Eve were tricked by the serpent and he told them, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Who do you think that God was referring to when he said he would put enmity between you and the woman? Certainly the only woman around was the disobedient Eve, so it could not be her. But then after the fall of Adam and Eve, God already had his plan for the salvation of mankind.

So if you read through the passages of the New Testament in John 2: 1-12, it reads, “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Did our Lord Jesus Christ address his mother as “woman”? Finally when our Lord was hanging on the cross and near death, he gave his mother to the beloved disciple John saying “woman behold your son, behold your mother.”  Since Jesus was the Son of God, his addressing his mother “woman” clearly reveals that his mother was that the woman that God mentioned in Genesis before Adam and Eve and the evil serpent.

The magisterium of the Catholic Church has always taught that the Blessed Virgin Mary had a role in the salvific plan of God and this role came into reality when the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived her son, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate this week. You can read today’s gospel reading in Matt.1: 18-24.

18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.

20 Such was his intention, when behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. 21 She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said though the prophet; 23 Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.

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I have heard some priests make a sermon in the past (though they no longer preach this anymore) that sort of puts the troubles of Joseph in today’s context, when someone is getting married and suddenly the man finds out that his bride-to-be is pregnant. Obviously in today’s context, this would be considered the new “normal”. But it wasn’t so in ancient times, when people’s word of honor was as important as life itself.

But if you read this passage clearly “Since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.” Yes, Joseph was a righteous man, which means he was a loyal follower of God’s commands, and therefore he must have read many prophecies of the coming of the Messiah…especially the prophecy of Isaiah.

So what was really troubling Joseph wasn’t about Mary’s pregnancy, but that he felt that he was the odd man out and had nothing to do with God’s plan for salvation. This is why the Angel Gabriel appeared to him in his dream and he understood that his role was to be the foster father of the Son of God, a role that he took very seriously until his death. God’s salvific plan starts with the Holy Family and the Holy Family gets completed with the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ on Christmas Day.

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