Advent 4th Sunday

We meet in the last week of the Advent that marks the completion of the Natividad del Señor. A truly surprising mystery for all humanity: God himself is humanized, God's mercy touches the earth. Today's readings present contexts that are really familiar to us, as they test the faith of two characters who are fighting against the personal uncertainties that generate their lives.

In the figure of King Ahaz and José, the dilemma of faith is being planted on us. Believe in the Señor and combine it with the struggle of how life is made by faith in our personal history.

In today's gospel there are three protagonists who have an essential role in the story in its meaning: Mary, José and God.

On the one hand, María, a woman who lives in a context of reduced femininity to a role of fruitful motherhood so that the Israelite community continues to grow, is always subject to the will of her husband and her family. Hebrew women easily repudiated for illogical reasons, women without words, without space, without independence, without social or religious value. From this point of view, only the common sense leads us to perceive María as a challenger to this tradition and with a clear mission to free women from this discriminatory burden that leaves them out of the social and religious system. María leads, in some way, a vision of a woman who does not need the tutelage of a man to have dignity, value and meaning in life; You do not need a religious or political authority, to live your mission and to collaborate with God's project from your identity without mediations and without mediators.

The second protagonist is José, a good man from the House of David, a “fair man” as defined in the text and who faces a very important challenge in his life. The problem at this moment is not María Sino de José's. He has to make a very silent decision because the one who is going to be his wife is waiting for a son. José must discern different options, none of them easy, according to the Jewish socio-religious context: he could denounce her to annul the marriage, celebrate the marriage and take her to his home, repudiate her in public or in private, the departure of Nazaret leaving things to be forgotten by María too. But your choice is also challenging. It is not a decision taken from the law, but from the light of God in his conscience that makes him see the best decision in this complex situation. José assumes the legal paternity of Jesus to live in historical time and collaborates with María to make God's time possible in our humanity.

The third protagonist is God represented in the angel through José's death. A God who reveals himself in the deepest part of the human being to make him aware that he is not a Lejano God, he was part of the story but a God who forms part of the same human innards; Enmanuel, you are more than a God with us, you are a God in us. This is how the end of Mateo's gospel confirms the beginning of his story: «And I know that I am with you every day until the end of time» (Mt 28:20).

As today we also celebrate the fiesta of Maria's hope, we share our HOPE that PAZ is the strength that changes the direction and energy of our world today. (Fr. Andoni)