Hi, I’m Brother Matthew from the Brotherhood of Hope, and I’d like to reflect on a prophesy from Isaiah Chapter 7, which is a popular Mass reading during Advent.
The reading goes like this, “The Lord spoke to Ahaz: Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the nether world or as high as the sky! But Ahaz answered, ‘I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!’”
Then Isaiah said, “Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary men, must you also weary my God? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you this sign: The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”
So, when Isaiah says, “This sign,” what’s this a sign for? Well King Ahaz, who was the king of Judah back in the 8th century BC, was very worried about his kingdom’s safety. There were two rival nations nearby and they were threatening a joint attack on his kingdom. So, Ahaz was considering to form a deeper alliance with Assyria, which at that time was the major super power in the ancient Near East.
And just prior to this reading, Isaiah had told Ahaz that the Lord didn’t want him to make this alliance with Assyria, the foreign nation. The idea is partly that a political alliance tends to entail a spiritual alliance, in this case with pagan Assyrians.
So, the Lord is asking King Ahaz to trust in God’s protection, and so he says, “The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” In other words, the Lord is saying, “Look, the virgin will bear a son, and therefore you’re going to know that I am with you.”
Now it’s not clear historically who the virgin is or who the son is. Maybe it’s Isaiah’s son, maybe it’s King Ahaz’s son. But it’s certainly the case that this birth is to be a sign of security and redemption for the kingdom of Judah.
It’s also clear that Ahaz didn’t heed the word of the Lord. He ultimately brought the kingdom of Judah into deeper and deeper dependence on Assyria, and this put him under greater pressure to adopt Assyrian forms of worship.
Probably though, not even Isaiah knew the full import of this prophesy. It’s the same prophesy we hear in Matthew Chapter 1, when Matthew says the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
And then Matthew goes on to say, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”
So, in God’s wisdom the ancient prophesy that King Ahaz rejected would be fulfilled in the greatest way imaginable. The birth of Jesus is not only a sign of the whole world’s redemption, but Jesus himself is the instrument of that very redemption. But the question remains for us just as it did for Ahaz, “Are we willing to wait for the Lord’s coming”?
It seems like Ahaz couldn’t wait the nine months for the sign, and so he looked elsewhere for protection. He sold himself out to the comforts of the world. And so, he became a slave of the world.
Can we wait these three weeks of Advent? And can we wait the remainder of our lives trusting that the Lord will come? And that all those who preserve in faith will see the glories and joys and securities of Christ’s coming kingdom?