Today is the last Sunday of Advent. The Church calls us to reflect on the everlasting love of God for his people. It is expressed in His covenant with David, which came to be fully realized in Mary. Today, we light the fourth Advent candle, which reminds us of God’s everlasting love, a love that destroys hate and brings peace over all the earth.
In the first reading, we hear of God’s covenant with David. The reading started with David’s intention to make a lasting dwelling for God. Then God made with him an everlasting covenant, a promise of a perpetual kingdom, a lineage that will endure, and a throne that will be established forever.
In the second reading, St. Paul speaks of the mystery hidden for ages but now revealed in Christ. In this Advent season, we have been meditating on the mystery of God’s love and favour for us when he gave us His son, Jesus Christ for our redemption.
In the Gospel of Luke, we encounter the divine announcement to Mary, a humble young woman chosen to bear the Son of God. She was described as highly favoured because she found favour in God. The fruit of this favour is that she would be the mother of God, of Jesus Christ, to which, her response was essential. And her response was the ‘fiat’ – let it be. Through Mary, God fulfills ultimately the covenant made with David when He gave us His Son, Jesus Christ.
Finally, where do we find ourselves in these scriptures? How do we connect with David, who found favour with God, and with Mary in whom God’s everlasting covenant was to be fulfilled through the birth of Jesus Christ? How do we resonate with the desire to do something that pleases God, to build for the cause of God, to build the community and God’s people for the sake of God’s kingdom, to love because it is godly, and summarily to do things as God wants of us? Let us always take the initiative like David to show our love for God, who loves us first, and surrender to God’s will like Mary, who said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me.”