May Christ, the Presence and Power of God as Savior among us, bless you and all that are yours at this Christmas and throughout your life. Happy Christmas! Happy New Year! + John I. Okoye
DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Isaiah 7,10-14; Romans 1,1-7; Matt 1 18-24; 4th Sunday of Advent, Year A, 2016)
One of the themes of this last Sunday of Advent, a week before Christmas, concerns the identity of the Messiah, who is to be born. Last Sunday, while responding to John the Baptist’s inquiry of his messiahship, Jesus indicated that he was the promised Messiah or savour. But, who is truly this Jesus? Is he just a simple, or an extraordinary person? The gospel reading of today, narrating the apparition of the angel to Joseph, throws more light on the personality of Jesus. Jesus the Messiah, is the son of Joseph from legal and juridical point of view. Through Joseph, Jesus was linked to the house and dynasty of David. But, he is also the Son of God who entered into human history like any other mortal through his birth by Mary. He was a full fledged person, coming from God as a gratuitous gift. This is evidenced by the extraordinary circumstances of his birth. He was conceived without human intervention, through the action of the Holy Spirit. The conception of Jesus without human intervention manifests and affirms God’s action as divine and completely independent of the human initiative.
Even though the birth of Christ is not due to human intervention, nevertheless, Joseph was called upon, not to send her wife away, to be a father to the child who was to be born and to give him the name Jesus, which means, God saves. And by so doing, Jesus became a descendant of the royal and messianic dynasty of David. The incarnation, like redemption and salvation, is a gratuitous gift of God. It is out of God’s initiative but it requires human collaboration. Maria was the first collaborator, then Joseph. The collaboration consisted in accepting, in faith, the design of God and co-operating to realise it. Indeed, our personal redemption and salvation will not be realised without our adhesion in faith to God’s plan and our personal commitment. In the same way the salvation of our brothers and sisters and the establishment of the reign of Christ in the world require our collaboration and dedication. By waiting for Mary’s fiat for the incarnation to take place and by entrusting to the Church his message of salvation, God demonstrated that he would not do anything without the people’s collaboration. Every Christian is called to be truly a messenger that prepares the way for the Messiah. He/she does that where he lives and works and with the persons he encounters.
still in search of the true identity of Jesus, we affirm that he was the son of Mary, conceived through the action of the Holy Spirit, a gift of God the Father and the Son of God; he is Immanuel, that is God with us. This is the joyous announcement, the Good News, which we have to hold in our hearts and proclaim to the world as the apostle Paul did to the Roman Christians. But do we truly believe this? Do we believe it enough? It may happen to us as it did to the king of Judah, Ahaz of the first reading, who neither believed enough in the faithfulness of God nor in the security that accrued to him in virtue of his membership of the community of Israel that had a covenant with God, but who in time of difficulty allied himself with the pagan country of Assyria. In the same way, we often, instead of seeking security, happiness and salvation in Christ, we go searching for them outside him, in our connectedness to human beings, in power, money and what money can buy, techniques, pleasures, in short, in human resources. What happens at the end? We become disillusioned, and feel more insecure than ever. Faith in God is not a blind trust, a jump into uncertainty. If Ahaz had wanted to proffer a sign, he could have presented as a sign, God’s presence that had accompanied the people of Israel through their history. God was really with them and was with him. We Christians of today have in the incarnation, in the salvific work of Christ and in his resurrection more valid signs that better manifest the presence of God in our midst.
In addition to the identity of Jesus as Immanuel, God with us, the gospel reading yet indicates another of his epithet. Joseph is to accept the son that Mary will give birth to and must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins. The name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew yehoshua, which means Yahweh is salvation. The name is further explained as yoshia, or he will save. The name Immanuel identifies Jesus as the presence of God among his people while, the name Jesus indicates Jesus as the saving power of God. The first duty of Jesus as saviour is to liberate men from the slavery of sin. At the last Supper Jesus taking up the chalice of wine said: Take, you all, and drink for this is may blood of the Covenant that is poured for many for the forgiveness of sins. Christ is the liberator of man from the slavery of sin, selfishness and moral disorder.
With the fourth Sunday of Advent, we are in the threshold of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the son of Mary, the legal son of Joseph, Immanuel and Saviour of the world. Today’s readings tell us that faith is required for us to participate profitably in the coming celebration. Before us are two figures, two examples of human response to the call of faith: Ahaz who failed the test and Joseph who despite his quandary was a paragon of faith. Paul offers us three ways of living out our faith: as a slave of Christ Jesus; as an apostle and as one set apart for service. Despite all the times we have celebrated Christmas, we still do not have full compression and understanding of it. Ahaz was unable to take the blind step of faith as trust in God and he tried to hide his weakness behind his piety. In contrast, the piety of Joseph, the just man, led him to make the leap of faith with the attendant commitments. What are we to do in the coming festival? We are simply invited to enter deeply into the event before us. Will we step into a life of deeper faith and commitment, or will we merely participate in the external celebration of the feast?
In the second reading, Paul identifies himself in three folds. He is slave, an apostle and one set apart. A slave is one who is devoted to the service of another. This is precisely what Christians are called to be and do, to be devoted to the service of Christ. This is what, Jesus, the child to be born, committed his life to. He came not to be served but to serve. So our celebration of his birth should be a recommitment to him, as a person and to follow his example in seeking out what enriches life and not what diminishes it. We are called to recommit ourselves to the good of the people. An apostle is one sent to deliver a message. All Christians are called to be apostles. We may not be official heralds of the gospel, but we proclaim our faith in the way we live our lives, in the kindness with which we treat others, in the honesty of our business transactions. We proclaim the gospel when we stand for justice, when we forgive those who have offended us and when we show compassion to those who suffer. In the hope of soon celebrating the birth of the Messiah, we are called upon to recommit ourselves to genuine Christian living. At Baptism we are set apart for service. When we love, it is not difficult to serve the loved ones. Friends, lovers, spouses, and parents do this without question. Service of others is perhaps the most common way of living out our faith. We serve others when we teach children good manners and how to live in the society, when we dedicate quality time to our primary relationship (like devoting time to my husband or my wife, my children, my pupils in class as school teacher or the sick where I work in the hospital) when we visit the sick, care for elders, etc. When Christ was born some two thousand years ago, he was born in a manger. Is he going to be given birth to this time in a manager or are you going to provide him warmth and care in your heart, home and community this time? He came to his people and they did not recognise him. Will this be repeated when he comes to us next week? Happy Christmas and God’s choicest blessings in the coming year 2017!
+John I. Okoye
(graphics by chukwubike)
"AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELL AMONG US."_*
Dearest in Christ good morning it's Christmas day. With the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God, the appointed time for the fulfilment of God's promise of restoring lost humanity had been set in motion. May this Christmas, the Mass of Christ which we celebrate today bring to you divine restoration of lost blessings of past years & sustainance of God's favours in the years to come.
In the second reading, Paul identifies himself in three folds. He is slave, an apostle and one set apart. A slave is one who is devoted to the service of another. This is precisely what Christians are called to be and do, to be devoted to the service of Christ. This is what, Jesus, the child to be born, committed his life to. He came not to be served but to serve. So our celebration of his birth should be a recommitment to him, as a person and to follow his example in seeking out what enriches life and not what diminishes it. We are called to recommit ourselves to the good of the people. An apostle is one sent to deliver a message. All Christians are called to be apostles. We may not be official heralds of the gospel, but we proclaim our faith in the way we live our lives, in the kindness with which we treat others, in the honesty of our business transactions. We proclaim the gospel when we stand for justice, when we forgive those who have offended us and when we show compassion to those who suffer. In the hope of soon celebrating the birth of the Messiah, we are called upon to recommit ourselves to genuine Christian living. At Baptism we are set apart for service. When we love, it is not difficult to serve the loved ones. Friends, lovers, spouses, and parents do this without question. Service of others is perhaps the most common way of living out our faith. We serve others when we teach children good manners and how to live in the society, when we dedicate quality time to our primary relationship (like devoting time to my husband or my wife, my children, my pupils in class as school teacher or the sick where I work in the hospital) when we visit the sick, care for elders, etc. When Christ was born some two thousand years ago, he was born in a manger. Is he going to be given birth to this time in a manager or are you going to provide him warmth and care in your heart, home and community this time? He came to his people and they did not recognise him. Will this be repeated when he comes to us next week? Happy Christmas and God’s choicest blessings in the coming year 2017! 
May you experience the powerful presence of God in your life that not only fills you with joy and gladness but also makes you an instrument in the hand of Jesus Christ in his messianic, salvific, and redemptive work. Happy Sunday! + John I. Okoye
Nowadays we Christians sometimes find ourselves in seemingly similar spiritual situation that the people of God of the Old Testament were: We are sometimes anguished because our faith is being attacked and belittled; or we fell completely lost on account of the increasing and expansion of evil forces and we are then hopeless, as it seems to us, that we are incapable of doing anything. In such situations the exhortation of Isaiah comes to be helpful, for it was not addressed only to the people of Israel of old but also to us: Have courage! Do not fear! Look your God is coming …to save you. By these words, Isaiah encouraged the fainthearted exiles in Babylonian servitude to patiently wait for God’s message of salvation through which he would usher new life. In our case and situation, God has already come. He is already in our midst and with us and will never abandon us. It is in this certitude of his transforming presence that we have to rediscover our confidence and serenity, no matter how bad the situation seems to be. Conscious fully and appreciative of God’s transforming presence in our midst, the full import of Paul’s exhortation in the entrance antiphon should become the refrain of our daily life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. What is more, we are obliged then to let the refrain of joy and happiness we feel and enjoy radiate in our society. How? By joining Christ in the messianic campaign of making the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers be cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead be raised to life and the Good News be proclaimed to the poor…Any act of love and kindness shown to any needy neighbour (such needy neighbours abound in our midst) will be transformed by the power of God as source or joy and happiness to the recipient of such kind gestures. Blessed are you (surely, you will continue to be joyous and glad) that through you our needy neighbours will feel and enjoy the assuring presence of God in their lives. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye 
