Holy Spirit of God, help me realize and receive your SIGN – Jesus Immanuel…

Isaiah 7:10 – 14
God, give me a Sign that you exist, the human spirit cries out.  God’s response in the time of Ahaz answers this challenge for all eternity; but how often do we, like the Israeli King, miss the message? King Ahaz was on a roll – he had had reasonable victories as he attempted to carve out the promised land from the enemies of Israel, and wanted a sign from God that he would continue to be successful. Faking piety, he asked God for confirmation that he would be successful in his next military campaign, but in pretentious, self-directed, religiousity Ahaz said he wouldn’t ask God for a sign.  God did respond to Ahaz (as he does to me each day) and to humanity throughout the ages - not with affirmation of my human plans and projects, but with THE SIGN that the Son of God would divinely become the Son of Man, born into ‘history’. Some 800 years later, and for us some 2000 years in the past, this happened. Through the purity and fiat of the Virgin Mary God’s Only Begotten Son was born, living into his names revealed by Gabriel to Mary  and Joseph,  ‘God With Us’, aka Immanuel and ‘God Saves’, Jesus, because he would redeem human kind from the pandemic of sin.  King Ahaz, who did not fully receive THE SIGN was not successful in his campaign, and finally, in order to create a peace of his own design, entered into a religious duality with a nation that worshipped ‘foreign gods’ that led Israel into a spiritual desert. Will I, unlike King Ahaz, pay attention to THE SIGN that we still celebrate at the winter solstice, and celebrate Christmas this year giving praise and homage to Jesus Immanuel at the feast of the Incarnation, the Nativity of our Lord? Holy Spirit of God, help me recognize and receive your SIGN Jesus Immanuel… 
 
Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.   (Psalm 25:5)
 
Christ’s birth was not a necessity, but an expression of omnipotence, a sacrament of commitment for the redemption of humankind.  
Saint Peter Chrysologus 406 – 450 AD
 
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