Advent 4 – Year A

Advent IV – Year A

Matthew 1:18–25; Isaiah 7:10–16

The Rev’d Charles Everson

December 21, 2025

In these final days of Advent, the Church’s waiting begins to feel different. Earlier in the season, it felt like our waiting was almost a deep ache from before the world began. In the Scriptures and the readings, we heard of longing, of grief, of hope still forming beneath the surface. But on this Fourth Sunday of Advent, the waiting tightens. Our calendars are full, expectations are high, and the sense that something is about to happen becomes unmistakable.

Two weeks ago, we were invited to look at the places in our lives that feel barren – places where life has been cut down to the stump. Through the prophet Isaiah, we were asked not to look away from the devastation, not to spiritualize it, not to rush past it, but to look directly at it. And there, Isaiah dared to proclaim hope: a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse. Fragile, tender, easily missed. God beginning again precisely where things looked dead.

Today, the tone shifts. The question is no longer whether God is at work beneath the surface. The question is what it will mean when God draws near.

In our reading from Isaiah, we encounter King Ahaz, a ruler paralyzed by fear. Judah is a small kingdom caught between powerful neighbors, facing the very real possibility of invasion. There was a memory in Judah of kings who had trusted the Lord to defend the house of David, but Ahaz is tempted to secure his future by his own calculations – by alliances, diplomacy, and empire. God meets him in that fear and offers him a sign – any sign at all, as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven. But Ahaz refuses. His refusal sounds pious: I will not put the Lord to the test. Yet Isaiah sees through it. This is not humility; it is resistance. Ahaz has already decided how he will manage his fear. He does not want a God who interferes.

And so God gives him a sign anyway.

Not an army. Not a military strategy. Not political reassurance. A child. A child named Immanuel, which means “God with us.”

From the beginning, Immanual – “God with us” – is not a sentimental phrase. It is a disruption. It means God refuses to remain distant. God insists on being present in the midst of the fear and uncertainty of our lives. The sign Ahaz does not want is precisely the sign God gives.

That promise carries us into today’s Gospel. Matthew tells the story not from Mary’s perspective, but from Joseph’s – a man caught in quiet crisis. His plans are unraveling. His reputation is at stake. As an engaged man in a small community, Joseph faces public shame, legal consequences, and the loss of everything he thought his future would be. The life he imagined – ordinary, faithful, predictable – is slipping away. And like Ahaz, Joseph is afraid.

But here is the difference. When Joseph encounters God’s word – when he learns that God is already at work – he does not retreat. He does not choose the safer path that would cost him less. He does not wait until everything makes sense. He obeys.

Matthew tells us that all of this took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: They shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God with us.

The shoot that Isaiah glimpsed breaking through the stump has now taken on flesh. The hidden work of God has a name, a face, a body. What was once fragile hope beneath the soil now stands among us as a child. God does not wait for us to be ready. God arrives right on time.

On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Church proclaims that God’s presence does not depend on our spiritual preparedness, our emotional stability, or our sense of control. God comes into lives that are imperfect and unfinished, into relationships that are strained, into faith that feels dry or exhausted.

Earlier in Advent, I spoke of my own experience of spiritual dryness this season– the experience of feeling far from God, when prayer is difficult, the sacraments feel dry, and choosing right over wrong feels exhausting. Isaiah gave us permission to name that honestly, not as failure, but as longing.

Today’s Gospel speaks directly into that experience. Joseph knows fear. He knows uncertainty. He knows what it is to stand at the edge of a future he did not choose. And into that fear, the angel speaks words that are not a command to feel better, but a promise: Do not be afraid. God is already here.

St. Paul puts it another way in his letter to the Romans. The gospel, he says, concerns God’s Son – descended from David, rooted in history, embedded in human life – and declared Son of God with power through the resurrection. In Jesus, God’s faithfulness stretches across centuries and arrives fully present among us.

This is the heart of today’s Mass. God is not late. God is not waiting for conditions to improve. God is with us – right on time.

That truth challenges us as much as it comforts us. We often want God nearby, but not too close. We want divine help when we think we need it, but not divine interruption. Advent IV asks whether we are ready – not for nostalgia, not for a sentimental Christmas, but for Emmanuel: God present, God involved, God saving.

Emmanuel is not confined to Bethlehem. God continues to be with us – here, now. At this altar, God meets us not in abstraction, but in bread and wine transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to be the Body and Blood of the same Emmanual who came to us at Bethlehem in a manger so long ago.

On the threshold of Christmas, the Church does not say, “We are ready.” We say something far more honest: God is here.

So if you feel unfinished this Advent – if the stump still looms large, if the shoot seems fragile, if your faith feels thin – hear the good news of this day. Christmas does not depend on your readiness. Do not be afraid.  Emmanuel is coming in a few short days in a manger, and in a few short minutes in the Blessed Sacrament.  God is with us.  Amen.