4th Sunday of Advent, Year A
Previous Years: [None]
Preached at Church of the Assumption in Bellingham, WA
Recording
https://moorejesus.podbean.com/e/being-fine/
Transcript
Now, I have never really heard of anybody turning down a sign from God. Most of us are begging for signs from God all the time. Lord, I don’t know what to do. Lord, give me a sign. Tell me what I’m supposed to do. Help me know if this is the right path, or this is the right path. And yet in the first reading, Is 7:10-14, we hear Ahaz being confronted by the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah says, “Ask for a sign from the LORD.” And Ahaz says, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!” All right, what’s going on here? Well, I will provide historical background and then some spiritual truths. Historical background: the Book of Isaiah occurs, as many of the prophetic books occur, during a political crisis. I think we all have seen enough of humanity to know a lot of times people don’t think about God until things are going wrong. And then, when things are going wrong, they say, Oh Lord, please save us from this crisis. What am I supposed to do? And then the Lord is able to finally speak. And so, a lot of times the prophets are dealing with a political crisis in Israel, and they’re speaking into it.
So, what’s going on at this time? At this point in the story of Israel, the kingdom of Israel is actually split into two different kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. So, this Isaiah reading is occurring in Judah, to the house of David ruled by King Ahaz in city of Jerusalem. In addition to Judah, there is Israel made up of the ten tribes of the north. To north of them is a nation called Syria, which in the Bible is often referred to by its principal city, Damascus. However, further to the east, in what I think is present day Iraq, there is Assyria. Not Syria, but Assyria. Assyria is the “Big Bad” of the time. They have the dominant army in the world. They have new military technology and new ways of organizing themselves, such that they are just plowing down everybody who stands in their way. Assyria is becoming a threat to the western Mideast, to the eastern Mediterranean. Judah, Israel, and Syria know that they are on the list. Already Assyria is putting pressure on them and requiring them to pay tribute to the king of Assyria so that they don’t get invaded. Those three smaller nations right along the Mediterranean are not thrilled with this arrangement. Syria and Israel want to rebel (Israel is the northern kingdom), and they know that only if the three kingdoms stand together do they have any chance against Assyria. But Judah is not interested in this arrangement. Judah does not want to poke the bear. They do not want to bring Assyrian wrath down on them. They say, no, we don’t want to be part of this alliance and that’s an existential threat to everybody. So, the king of Syria (Damascus) and the king of Israel (the northern kingdoms) come down and they try to invade the city of Jerusalem, depose the king of Judah (Ahaz), and replace him with a different king who is going to join this alliance. This is the context in which this Isaiah reading is happening. The troops of Syria and northern Israel are surrounding or coming toward the city of Jerusalem, and Ahaz is investigating the defenses of Jerusalem. He’s investigating the water supply because if you’re going to be under siege you need to make sure you still have water, and he’s investigating the walls of the city. What’s also on his mind is that he needs protection from these neighbors who are trying to invade, and he is contemplating asking Assyria the “Big Bad” to come and defend him from his northern neighbors, northern Israel and Syria. Bringing Assyria into the area is going to have massive consequences and ultimately it does. Assyria comes in and completely wipes out Damascus and completely wipes out the ten tribes. Northern Israel is gone after Assyria comes through, and they never come back. A lot of that is because Ahaz asked Assyria to come into their place, and Assyria doesn’t need anything from anybody. Once they’re there, they’re going to take whatever they want, and Judah becomes a vassal state of Assyria. Bad all the way down, but we’re still in the middle of this story.
Ahaz can still change course, and what Isaiah is challenging him to do is to trust in God. God is saying it is my job to take care of my people Israel. It is my promise that I will protect you from your enemies if only you are faithful to me, and if only you keep my covenant, and my laws, and pray, and offer sacrifice. Only if you do that. But if you keep my covenant, I will keep my covenant. I will protect you. And so, Isaiah is constantly poking Ahaz and saying, hey, you need to trust in God. You need to let God take care of this crisis. If you go to him, you’re going to be fine. But Ahaz refuses. Ahaz, and this is true of all of us and our politicians, has to be very careful. He knows his diplomacy, and he knows military. That’s where he’s comfortable. And so, he doesn’t want to look to God, he doesn’t want to trust in God. He doesn’t trust in God. He says, I know diplomacy, I know military, I can deal with this myself. I can take care of this myself. I’ll go to Assyria. It’s all going to be fine. Isaiah is pleading with him, ask for a sign. Fine, you don’t trust in God. Ask for a sign. Let him confirm for you what he desires to do for you. “Let it be as deep as the netherworld or high as the sky!” (Is 7:11). It doesn’t matter what sign you want the Lord will fulfill it. Just give him a chance to prove himself to you. Trust in the Lord. In the face of this, Ahaz says, no, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!” (Is 7:12). Tempt the Lord to do what exactly? Tempt the Lord to show that he loves you. That he wants to take care of you. Tempt the Lord to deal with this crisis on your behalf. What’s the problem?
Ahaz thinks he’s being baited into a trap. The only trap is that Ahaz is being asked to do something faithful and something radical. Ahaz doesn’t want to do it. He’s not comfortable there. He’s comfortable with the diplomacy and the military. That’s where he wants to go. He doesn’t want a sign from the Lord, because he knows that if he receives a sign from the Lord, he’s going to have to change his ways. It’s going to confirm for him not the path that he’s on, but the path that the prophet is calling him to. And if that’s confirmed, well, he’s stuck. He’s up a creek, because then it’s going to be even more obvious that he’s wrong, and he doesn’t want that. And so, he says, I’m good. I don’t need a sign. I’m fine. Let’s just leave it as it is. God doesn’t take no for an answer though. Isaiah said, “Listen, O house of David, king of Judah, is it not enough for you to weary people, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign” (Is 7:13-14). I don’t care that you want a sign. You’re going to get a sign anyway, because that’s what prophets do. They say, look, this is what God is calling you to do. And I am going to hammer that home. You don’t want a sign? Fine. Here’s a sign anyway. And what’s that sign? “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel” (Is 7:14). This is an obvious prophecy of Jesus Christ. Saint Matthew confirms it in his own gospel that this is a prophecy of Jesus Christ. But when we read the Old Testament prophets, we have to understand there is a meaning to the people at the time. The prophets don’t say something that’s only going to mean something 700 years later. So many scholars think that there was also a domestic crisis in Israel at the time. Ahaz had lost his son, and they’re thinking there’s not an heir to the throne, therefore, his kingship is also unstable. It’s likely that Isaiah was gesturing to his wife. Maybe it was one of his wives. I forget where they were with polygamy at that time, but gesturing to somebody who can provide an heir and saying, this virgin will bear a son. It’s unlikely that she was a virgin when she buried a son in Isaiah’s time. But the sign was given, and the prophecy continues, past the reading given to us, that by the time this son is a certain age, the enemies of Judah will have already been defeated. Isaiah is saying, not only are you going to solve this domestic political crisis, but in a very short amount of time, these enemies that you are so worried about will be gone because the Lord is going to do this. But Ahaz doesn’t want to hear it. Ahaz has no interest in having this confirmed because he is happy with where he is. He’s happy with his course, and he’s just going to continue on.
Question for us. How many times does this describe our own life? How many times does the Lord wish to bless us and to give us an incredible gift, and we turn aside and say, I’m good, I’m fine, I’m not interested. I have a couple of examples from my life. Discerning priesthood is the most obvious one. I was a faithful kid. I was faithful in middle school. I was faithful in high school. I was faithful in college. When you do that and you’re a young man, people just ask you about the priesthood. I immediately and reflexively always said, no, not interested, and not something I want to do. I feel called elsewhere. That was all through high school and most of college. Nope, I’m good. But I never asked God about it. I didn’t want to ask God about it because I didn’t want to be a priest. Asking God is to have an open heart. Asking God as to say, Lord, I actually want to know what you have to say. I’m actually open to any possibility. I wasn’t open to priesthood. It took a much deeper prayer experience for me to be open to priesthood. I wasn’t open, I didn’t want to ask God. Then when he knocked me over the head, opened up my prayer, and got me to finally ask him about priesthood, he confirmed it. My greatest fears: that he would confirm it. He did. He called me to priesthood when I did not want to go. Well, I didn’t ask because I kind of knew that’s how it was probably going to go, subconsciously. Again, I didn’t even engage with it enough to ask. But we do this. We humans do this.
Another example from once I got to seminary: I knew I enjoyed playing video games. It’s something that I enjoyed, and I also knew that video games can easily take up too much time and be a problem. I didn’t want to ask God about it. I didn’t want to give him my video games because I was worried that if I asked him about it, he would take them away. He would say, no, you’re not allowed to play these at all, ever. It took me years in seminary to finally lay that question before the Lord. He didn’t strip me of them, but I didn’t want to ask him because I didn’t want the answer. I was not open to what he wanted to do in my life.
The last example is kind of an ongoing, cyclical thing in my life. But bedtime is a problem for many of us. I hear confessions, and I know bedtime is a problem for many of us. Particularly now that we have a little pocket computer. For me, there are phone games I like to play, and I’ll play them past my bedtime, and then I don’t wake up to pray in the morning. Then I have to pray in the afternoon, and I’m tired when I do it. I know this needs to change, but I’m not ready to change it. I like the way things are. They’re fine. I’m surviving. I know there’s a call of the Lord in my life. I know I need to set a 9:30 pm deadline where the phone just turns itself off. I need some sort of program that just shuts it down. I know I need to do that. I don’t know that I’m ready to do that. I don’t want a sign from the Lord. That would be the worst. To know what I need to do, and then for him to say, look, here’s a sign. I know what you need to do, and I want to really rub that in that you need to do that. I will not ask. I will not tempt the Lord.
How many of us are dealing with that all the time? How many of us have a question we are unwilling to give to God because we don’t want to know the answer and because we are not open to what he has to say about it. How many of us know the answer and don’t want him to confirm it? Don’t want him to give us a push to go there? In addition to what I’ve already mentioned from my own life, here are some things you might consider. Are there relationships that need to be healed? Are there people that we need to reach out to, and try to rekindle some sort of conversation? Is there family we haven’t talked to for years? Are there habits in our lives, sins, that we know are sins and we know are going to take some radical work, but we don’t want to do the hard work? We’re happy enough just to deal with the sin and go to confession from time to time and call it good. How many of us tell ourselves over and over and again that we’re fine? I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Sure, my enemies are besieging my city. I don’t have an heir on the throne. Assyria is going to come and conquer my kingdom. But I’m fine. I’ve got this. Everything’s fine. We do that all the time? I’m fine. But the truth is that God wants to bless you. He wants to love you. He wants to conquer your enemies. He wants to give you an incredible life. And a lot of times, that blessing is going to come from the place where we don’t expect it to come from. When I’ve been disciplined about my bed time, my prayer life is awesome. It’s awesome. But I’m fine. I don’t need that blessing. I’m good.
He wants to love you and bless you. He has such incredible things in store for you, but you have to give him everything. You have to be open to what he wants to do for you. You have to trust that his plan is better than your plan. You have to know that you’re not fine. You need a savior, and you need that savior to be God. Whatever you’re holding back from him, lay it at the altar today at this mass. Put it there during the sacrifice. Give it to him. Allow him to confirm for you his plans for you. Allow him to give you a sign. Ahaz couldn’t have known it. Isaiah very likely didn’t know it. But that sign, it was confirmed in Jesus Christ. Something we could never have expected. God becoming man, saving us from sin, and doing all of the hard work for us. You can’t expect that. Same is true for his plans in your life. You have no idea the blessings he wants to give you. You have no idea where it is. You only know what his call is in your life. You answer that call, if you receive the sign. You will be amazed at what comes next.
Fr. Moore 