God keeps promises: Homily for Monday, December 18, 2023

God keeps promises. The readings from December 17 until the 23rd take a decided shift. The genealogies assure us that Jesus is fully human and fully a descendant from King David. The readings this week remind us that God really is active in our world and throughout history.

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God keeps promises

And so there’s a very definite shift in the readings that starts on December 17th. We are now moving away from the readings which emphasize the coming of Jesus at the end of time and our need to be conscious and aware of being ready always for that, to the historical coming of Jesus in time.

Our focus now is on the Incarnation. Our focus now is specifically on remembering Christmas, why it matters, why it’s important. And we’re going to see over the next few days a whole bunch of things that help us to recognize that this circumstance and situation is such that indeed we need to know a number of things about the Lord.

I was skipping ahead because I thought it began with the genealogy of Jesus, which it does. That was yesterday if we had not had a Sunday on yesterday. We might think, what’s the big deal? Why all these names and why is it important and why are there kind of two different focuses in terms of these names? Well, there are two theological points that are being made about the genealogies of Jesus.

The first is that he’s human, which is really important. That was a real struggle for the early church for centuries to figure out how those things could work together. And so there is the tracing in one genealogy all the way back to Adam. It’s also important that there is a significant and real connection to King David because it was to King David that the promise was given for a Messiah.

And so in the second genealogy, there is definite attempt to show how it is that Jesus is related and connected to King David. Both were essential theologically. It was important that Jesus be fully human. And there was an awful lot of heresy flying around about the fact that Jesus was either not fully human or not fully divine.

And it’s very important that Jesus be the fulfillment of the promise of God, which is why it’s so critical that things are connected to King David. Now, all of that leads us to today because in the book of the prophet Jeremiah, who quite frankly did not have a great time as a prophet, he was known actually as the weeping prophet because things had gotten so bad.

But he was deeply committed to the people, staying with them right until the very end and ultimately not being exiled to Babylon, but being exiled to Egypt with the least of the least. His dedication and commitment was complete and total and entire.

But it comes from this belief that we begin to see exercised here, that God will not leave his people abandoned forever, that there is this great hope that is coming. And we can see throughout the Old Testament and even into today’s gospel where Joseph has a dream that God’s hand is very clearly in action throughout history.

That it is very and critically important that we recognize that everything is according to God’s plan. No one could fault Joseph for being a little upset, shall we say, at the circumstances as they’ve unfolded. But more important than his being upset is his faith in God.

Let us ask the Lord today that we might search and seek with his help more clearly his activity in our lives so that we too might celebrate the coming of the Lord Jesus.

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