Reflection on the Readings at Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent – Year B. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. READINGS: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16, Romans 16:25-27, and Luke 1:26-38.
The Liturgy of the Mass is Guiding Us Into the Promise Made to King David
One thing is profoundly made clear in the Genesis account of creation: God intended to create us so that He could always spend time with us, with Him loving us and us loving Him. He breathed the immortal breath of life into our bodies, thereby making us embodied souls. God then placed us in an environment rightly called a garden because it reflected well on the life given to us. Just as the Garden of Eden was teaming with life, we were also called to fill it with our life by sharing the imago Dei He gave us, commanding us to “be fruitful and multiply.” Then, when sin entered the world, time was reordered by death in a sense because our immortal soul now had to dwell with a body that was cursed to decay, from which, when the soul is separated from the body, it is death. Therefore, sin is a parasite to time and the original design of our creation.
We reflect the image in which we were created when we spend time with the people we love. However, we reflect His image imperfectly because selfish desires may corrupt our intentions. That is, we may desire to spend time with the person we love for the sake of divine love and because we desire the best for the other, but we may also want something from the other; there may be a transactional element in our intention to spend time with the other. The time we spend with others is also imperfect because of our ongoing decay. Our soul will inevitably be separated from our body (death), which limits the amount of time we have to spend with the other. It is not so with God, whose nature is divine love, which neither desires reciprocity nor dies, fades, or withers because it is eternal. In this way, sin is a thief to time and to perfect love because it robs them of their original design.
However, today’s Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent serve as a reminder that the divine intent of God can never be denied by sin.
The First Reading from 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16 should be read within the context of Nathan’s prophecy about a new creation. Starting in chapter five, the author of 2 Samuel writes a beautiful play on the seven-day creation account from the first chapter of Genesis by informing us of the seven first events of the Kingship of David that lead to a new creation. On the first day, when David was made King, “All the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron,” and echoing Adam when he first saw Eve, they said: “Look! We are your bone and your flesh” (2 Samuel 5:1). In the subsequent four events, David gathers the people as God gathered the water and sky into a single basis. First, he captured Zion by defeating the Jebusites, and then “Hiram, king of Tyre, sent envoys to David along with cedar wood, and carpenters and masons, who built a house for David” (2 Samuel 5:11). Then David became fruitful and multiplied by taking more concubines from which, “more sons and daughters were born to him” (2 Samuel 5:13). Then on the fifth day after David was anointed King over Israel, the Philistines raised up against him, but were soundly defeated. On the sixth day, David encountered the Ark of the Covenant, which prefigures the Blessed Mother Mary, the Ark of the New Creation. Just as Elizabeth acclaimed, “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43), David acclaimed, “How can the ark of the LORD come to me?” (2 Samuel 6:9), and just as John the Waymaker leaped in his mother’s womb when Mary the Ark entered Elizabeth’s home, “David and all the house of Israel danced before the LORD with all their might,” (2 Samuel 6:5) when the Ark of God entered Jerusalem. Then, on the seventh day of 2 Samuel’s account, “When King David was settled in his palace, and the LORD had given him rest from his enemies on every side,” and having given David rest on the seventh day, God then promised, “Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever.”
Then, according to today’s Gospel Reading from Luke 1:26-38, when the fullness of time had come, God’s promise to David was made known by the angel Gabriel, who was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you . . . “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Yes, we rejoice in this good news! The coming Christ Mass event is the new creation promised to King David.
These salvific secrets concerning God’s merciful and loving promise of the coming new creation through the seed of David are still a mystery today to many, even to those who believe in the words of the prophet Nathan. We give thanks to God that He has not made us blind to His love and mercy. This is why in today’s Second Reading from Romans 16:25-27, the Apostle Paul praises God for having made His revelation known to us, writing, “To him who can strengthen you, according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages but now manifested through the prophetic writings and, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
God is always making a way to spend eternity with each of us, and the liturgy of the Mass is our reminder that Christ Jesus, through His Church and His sacraments, our Lord God, is shepherding us into the promised new creation and into His Father’s House where He has prepared a mansion for you and for me.
This is just one way the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us in how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
