Scripture Reflections for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

“His will belongs entirely to Christ. He lives according to Christ's desires and not his own.”

“we need to acknowledge the imperfection in ourselves and in others and come to see that God can do truly marvellous things, even with our highly imperfect responses”

“And so let Joseph teach us how to welcome God’s son into our lives this Christmas, caring for everyone’s reputation, and yet, if necessary, being unafraid to lose our own”

“The Word made flesh caught us by surprise — it even caught Mary and Joseph unawares. But it was always in God’s mind to do this — to become part of His creation, to become one of us.”

“One of Joseph's great virtues is that...he is willing to listen to this voice that comes from a deeper part of his soul. He's willing to be a person of faith in that sense to think and to feel out of the box.”

“A God living within you might want to change things. He might want to take over. Are we ready for that?”

“Whether it was the uncertainty of the times of Isaiah or the uncertainty of the Roman empire in the 1st century, troubles loomed on the horizon. Within the backstories of darkness, God came as Light.”

“Paul reminds them that the mystery of the incarnation will be incomplete without the Paschal mystery. That is to say, without the Resurrection of Christ which is the mystery of “God-who-saves”, the mystery of “God-with-us” is incomplete.”

“So the question is this: Do we want to be stuck in our small private dreams, or do we dare get caught up the adventure of God’s holy dream, of a love beyond all imagining. We may be blocked by simply not desiring enough.”

“God saw his love for Mary, the sacrifice he was willing to make, and he let Joseph get to that point where the only thing he could do was trust in God. Joseph did not know yet that his beloved Mary carried God within her. In his darkest night, God was right there, unbeknownst to him.”

“the promise is this: God with us. Emmanuel. Not God-who-will-fix-every-difficulty-and-prevent-all-suffering-right-now. God who will be with us, who will live with us, who will rejoice with us, who will suffer and die with us. This is God’s solidarity with God’s people.”

“do we listen for God’s voice and respond, as Joseph did, even when it seems extraordinarily challenging, even foolish; or do we cling to our own stratagems, our cunning plans, which will likely bring us, eventually, to disaster?”

“The Incarnation reminds us we are interconnected to one another...When you sit down face to face with another person and you start talking about the things that really matter, you are going to find more things in common than things that divide. When you find that bridge of commonality, there is Christ.”

“our histories stand in continuity to this great biblical history. David to Ahaz to Joseph to Jesus to Paul and that trajectory continues now to us.”

“The problem, and here we come to the heart of the matter, it's not that God is reluctant to give but that we are reluctant to ask. Not that God hesitates to give us grace but that we hesitate to receive it.”

“The point is we might give up on God but God never gives up on us. We might think there's no meaning, no purpose during this but God keeps telling us 'yes, there is.'”

“In Isaiah's mind, undoubtedly, it is the child of Ahaz, the line will go on. But now we see in light of the angel's remark that that was in fact a prediction of something even more wonderful.”

“all the signs that we ask for, all the dreams that we dream, they're all finally related to Christ.”

“Never underestimate the power of God. Stop overestimating your own power.”