Word to the Wise
Saturday, December 25, 2010 - Friday in the Fourth Week of Advent
[2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16 and Luke 1:67-79]Go tell my servant, David......I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. Your house and your Kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever. [2 Samuel]<br /> He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David. [Luke]
Zechariah's Canticle (the "Benedictus") expresses the joy of knowing that God has kept the promise made to David about the Messiah, recorded in the words from the Second Book of Samuel! This had to be a powerful tradition since it survived all the chaos of the division of David's united kingdom after his son, Solomon's death, and the subsequent destruction of the divided kingdoms by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, followed by the Babylonian Exile, etc. By our own celebration, we acknowledge this same tradition of God's promise and its fulfillment in the birth of Jesus Christ.
The birth of one Jewish child in a small village in Palestine seems like a tiny pebble thrown into the vast lake of the history of creation. Yet, it created ripples that grew and continue to grow. We may focus our attention on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on the crib scene in our homes and churches, but those scenes will be eventually dismantled and stored away for the next celebration. What continues is the impact of God's fulfilled promise and our daily faith and efforts to live in accord with what the newborn Jesus Christ has taught us and continues to teach us age after age. Those tiny ripples will continue to disturb God's mighty ocean of creation. That is why we continue to celebrate and look at those crib scenes! AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
82 ms
4
