Emmanuel

Advent: 20 December 2018

Isaiah 7:10-14. Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6. Luke 1:26-38.

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the maiden shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”

The gospel passage from St Luke (of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary) is the fulfilment of the prophecy spoken in today’s first reading from Isaiah. Among a number of bad kings, King Ahaz of Judah comes out as particularly bad. He revived the barbarous custom of human sacrifice. “He even burnt his son as an offering, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel” (2 Kings 16:3). He followed other religious customs of the neighbouring idolatrous religions. When the king of Syria attacked Ahaz’s capital of Jerusalem, he appealed to the Assyrians – “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me” (2 Kings 16:7). He then took treasures from the Temple and sent them as a gift to the Assyrian king. He also made an exact copy of an altar he saw in Damascus and set it up in the Temple and removed the bronze altar of the Temple to one side. On this new altar, he made offerings in the Assyrian manner, which included throwing blood on the altar.

Ahaz’s reign lasted 16 years and he was succeeded by his son Hezekiah, whom the Bible speaks as being one of the best kings. His reign lasted for 29 years but it was a very trying period for the Jews. During it the famous Sennacherib “came down like a wolf on the fold,” laid siege to Jerusalem but his whole army was suddenly decimated by some highly contagious epidemic which swept right through it killing, according to the Bible account, more than 100,000 soldiers. The siege had to be called off.

All of this, of course, is only indirectly connected with today’s reading but it does give some idea of the context in which the prophecy was made. The reading begins with the Lord (through the mouth of Isaiah) urging Ahaz to ask for a sign either from God or from Sheol, the place of the dead. Ahaz, however, declines because he does not want to put his God to the test. Nevertheless, although God (and especially his prophet, Isaiah) is clearly not pleased with this rejection of the Lord’s offer, the evil king Ahaz will be given a sign anyway.

What is this sign? “A young girl is with child and will give birth to a son and he will be called Immanuel, which means ‘God-is-with-us’.” This is clearly meant to be an encouragement to Ahaz about the future of the kingdom now under siege from so many sides. (The original text does not say explicitly that it is a virgin who will give birth. The Hebrew word almah simply means a young girl.) This statement promises a king and an heir to David who will bring salvation to God’s people, who, at the time of Ahaz, are being attacked by the Syrians on one side and by the Assyrians on another.

Historically, Isaiah is thinking of a successor to Ahaz, namely, his son Hezekiah. But in this sign Matthew, the evangelist, sees a more decisive intervention by God and the establishment of a messianic kingdom in Christ Jesus. According to Matthew, the Child who will be born in Bethlehem does not only give us God’s blessings, or miraculous and divine liberation, but through him, God becomes present among humankind and the promises heard so many times come true: “I will be their God and they will be my people.”

We see the beginning of the fulfilment of all this prophecy in the gospel passage (though Luke does not quote this statement) which speaks of Mary being invited to be the Mother of the Saviour, who will be both God’s Son and hers. Even Isaiah is not likely to have dreamt of the implications of all this – when the Word was made flesh and lived among us as one of us.

Modified from https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/a1220r/.