Fourth Sunday of Advent

by Fr. Jess Ty  |  12/22/2024  |  Weekly Reflection

What is Christmas? Why we need Christmas or Christ’s Incarnation?

Christmas is the fulfillment of God’s promise in Genesis 3:15, that he will send a Redeemer, Son of a woman to fight against the Devil. “I will put enmity you (serpent) and the woman and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.”

Because Jesus became man, he can now offer sacrifice for us, He can use his Body and voluntary die for our salvation. “When Christ came into the world, he said: ‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me… behold, I come to do your will, O God…By this will, we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.” (Heb. 10:5, 10).

Animal sacrifice was not part of the original covenant, it was given as a remedy after they worshipped the golden calf. According to the Second Reading this weekend, the reason for the Incarnation or Christmas, is so that Christ may come to Israel and offer his body once and for all, a definitive sacrifice that will put and end to all animal sacrifice and change the covenant economy from one focused on external observances to one focused on obedience to God’s will from the depths of the heart. “I will put my law within them, I will write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer. 31:33). (See Dr. John Bergsma, The Word of the Lord, p.33).

Our Catechism paragraph 457-460 gave four reasons why the Word became flesh or Incarnation: first, The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God. Second, so that thus we might know God’s love. Thirdly, to be our model for holiness and fourth, to make us “partakers of the divine nature.” (1Peter 1:4).

May we all thank our Blessed Mother for her “fiat”, her “yes” to offer her body and immaculate heart to do God’s will and she me in turn help us to imitate her Son saying: “Behold, I come to do your will.”