Listen to the Prophet; From God - do not let your courage Fail

How fearful we can become when all hope is somewhere in a cloud that all of us may appear to have lost. As we reach this epic of hopelessness in life, stand up and praise the Lord of all hope and reach out for the only answer that exists when the Virgin gives birth to the Savior of the world. God knew from our creation that every human being he created will find an absence of faith and he would therefore create a remedy of forgiveness by becoming one of us through an Incarnate mystery of human birth.

This fourth Sunday of Advent brings all of us to a finality of our waiting that is the answer to our creator’s presentation through the struggle of what Mary and Joseph will experience on their way to fulfill the prophecies of the past scriptures.

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign; the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” (Is 7: 14). Words that will hand to us the freedom of Israel and all who dwell therein. We of course, the Gentile believers are included, and the world’s future of salvation is in the eyes of a Savior born to a Virgin. But there are more of a synopsis that will bring cheer and joy to all who will accept this birth of Christ. His birth, like ours, is to be a path to our human death in order to reach heaven and eternal life, The other sad side of Israel’s future is the coming unjust afflictions to Jerusalem in early writings of Isaiah and other prophets and what happened in October 2024 is still under siege by the enemies of God.

Advent brings us to a glorious conclusion that the days of disaster to Israel and its inhabitants may become past events. However, if you read the chapters in Isaiah you see that the enemies of God are not yet discouraged and still are around to destroy Israel.

As in the previous articles for Advent; 1st, 2nd, and third Sundays of Advent, we must keep in mind that this blessed birth of our God, Jesus Christ, is a reflection of what he had to confront during his mission to humanity, the very sinfulness of man’s pride to ignore God and all that he has given us out of his divine love for us.

This should not discourage our festive pronouncement of receiving the joy and blessedness that the Lord, our God, gives us on Christmas eve as we hear the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Lk 2: 14).

Ralph B. Hathaway