Fourth Sunday of Advent - Year A
December 21, 2025
Gospel Lectionary Text
Matthew 1:18-25
1:18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
1:19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
1:20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
1:21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
1:22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
1:23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."
1:24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,
1:25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Context
Welcome to the fourth and final Sunday of Advent. We’ve been undergoing the waiting rooms of Christmas: Apocalypse, Wilderness, Prison. And now we find ourselves with Mary in perhaps the most precarious waiting room of all: Public Disgrace. It’s the shame-soaked space where Mary stands exposed, bewildered, and impossibly vulnerable. By law her condition demands public execution.
Shame is deadly. It works like an autoimmune disease that attacks its host unrelentingly. It gnaws at identity. It isolates. It disfigures and dehumanizes. Its main arsenal is accusation. It’s the native tongue of Satan, who is the “Accuser.”
Joseph defies the honor/shame codes of his day. He shields Mary by providing sanctuary. His intervention not only spared Mary public humiliation but public execution. It altered salvation history. As if to provide Mary additional comfort, the Gospel of Matthew surrounds her with four soul sisters, the grandmothers of Christmas: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. These women stand out in bold relief. They are the only women mentioned in the genealogies. Like Mary, their lives were forged in scandal. What’s more, each of them is a foreigner, viewed with great suspicion. They are gifts of grace from outside. These courageous outsiders midwifed the Messiah, and no doubt their stories consoled Mary, an insider feeling very much alone. Surely, Jesus heard their stories growing up, allowing him to recall the grandmothers of Christmas with great affection for their daring acts and holy defiance.
We are told in the book of Hebrews that “for the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross, disregarding its shame” (Heb. 12:2). It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that Mary and the grandmothers of Christmas prepared Jesus for his own encounter with public disgrace, which he was able to “disregard.”
And so, the divine messenger speaks to Mary in her time of need: Do not be afraid. The miracle of Advent is that God is with us — in every waiting room: Apocalypse, Wilderness, Prison and most especially in Public Disgrace, calling forth life. Do not be afraid.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.
Question
The Incarnation is not without scandal. Jesus comes from a line of "improper" conceptions. How might we find ourselves scandalized by the miracle of Emmanuel, God with us, this Advent?
Reflections
Uncle Frank
By Ron Ruthruff |
In today’s text, we are given the perspective of Joseph. Matthew, the author, seems to be interested in telling the story in a way that clearly reflects the Old Testament: he either quotes or alludes to it almost 100 times!
Born in Scandal
By Joel Aguilar |
Not too many years ago, in a community marked by a history of scandalous events, I encountered one of the wittiest and smartest kids I have ever met. His name was Kevin. Kevin understood what it meant to come from a scandalous background.
The Fourth Waiting Room of Christmas: Public Disgrace
By Kris Rocke |
We began this year’s Advent series by exploring The Waiting Rooms of Christmas. We waited in the Apocalypse, and peace found us. We waited in the Wilderness, and a garden of grace grew in our midst. We waited in Prison, and we discovered ourselves set free. Finally, we wait with Mary in the shameful spotlight…
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
The Coming
by R.S. Thomas
And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There: crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held our their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.
Prayer
This week, the call to prayer comes from the Street Psalms Centering Prayer: Give Thanks & Welcome the Spirit
Give Thanks:
Give thanks for the presence of Christ in all things, calling life into being.
Welcome the Spirit:
Come, Holy Spirit, wild and free. Do as you please. Shine your light on me that I might see things as they are, not as I am. Free me to act in your name with courage, creativity, and compassion.
