By Fr Antony Christy, SDB.
THE WORD IN ADVENT – Third week Tuesday
December 19, 2023 – Judges 13:2-7,24-25; Luke 1: 5-25
The Joy of the Reign lies in the promises of the Lord! The joy is not all about what we experience today or what we expect tomorrow, but in the timeless and eternal promises that the Lord has given us, God’s beloved children and the people of the Covenant. “You shall conceive and bear a son”, “Your wife shall bear a son” – we find these two promises in the Word today – made to two couples who were apparently beyond the possibility of bearing a child. They are certainly not the only ones… we can begin counting right from the case of Abraham, right up to the birth of Jesus – everywhere, what we see is the “promise” active, alive and actualised.
Be it Samson or John the Baptist – they had their call clearly defined and they were instrumental in fulfilling the promises of God. In history, we see that God has availed Godself of varied people who received the promises of the Lord, trusted in them and thus became themselves bearers of that promise onward to God’s people. Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, David, Samson, Samuel and finally John the Baptist – they were all promise-bearers. And finally, Jesus was the ultimate promise and promise-bearer.
When the Lord grants us a promise, there is an injunction that comes along – of course the Lord’s promise is a covenant and therefore it involves equally both parties: God and us. For example, today when Samson and John were promised, their mothers were instructed as to what to do and what not to do! They knew that their child was special, a promise to look forward to. After all, every child that is born in this world is a promise, isn’t it? We are never left hopeless, the Lord’s promises accompany us all through and in these promises lies our true joy, the joy of the Reign.
As the antiphon for the day explains to us – the Root of Jesse, is the sign to the people… like the experience of Abraham, hoping against hope, we see the promise of the Lord coming to life even there seems to be no possibility. That is why we proclaim that it is the Lord who is our hope; our trust is in the Lord right from our birth!
Let our celebration of the Reign be firmly rooted in the promises of the Lord, the eternal promise that makes us people of the Lord, people of the Covenant, and people of the Reign.
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He has completed his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him on.