King Ahaz had a problem,
but he also had a plan to solve it.
Ahaz was the young ruler of Judea,
the nation that was the southern fragment
of the kingdom that King David had established
but his descendants had failed to keep intact.
Ahaz’s problem was that Israel,
the northern fragment of David’s former kingdom,
was under threat from the Assyrian empire
and Israel’s king was pressuring Ahaz
to join in an alliance to repel the Assyrians.
This was a problem because Ahaz saw the obvious:
Assyria was going eventually to crush the Israelites
and, if he allied with Israel,
the Assyrians would crush the Judeans as well.
But the Israelites were threatening war
against Ahaz and the Judeans
to get them to join the fight
against the Assyrians,
so some sort of war seemed inevitable.
but he also had a plan to solve it.
Ahaz was the young ruler of Judea,
the nation that was the southern fragment
of the kingdom that King David had established
but his descendants had failed to keep intact.
Ahaz’s problem was that Israel,
the northern fragment of David’s former kingdom,
was under threat from the Assyrian empire
and Israel’s king was pressuring Ahaz
to join in an alliance to repel the Assyrians.
This was a problem because Ahaz saw the obvious:
Assyria was going eventually to crush the Israelites
and, if he allied with Israel,
the Assyrians would crush the Judeans as well.
But the Israelites were threatening war
against Ahaz and the Judeans
to get them to join the fight
against the Assyrians,
so some sort of war seemed inevitable.
If you can’t follow all these ancient
near eastern political intrigues,
which make the intrigues of Game of Thrones
seem like kid stuff,
don’t worry and just trust me
when I say Ahaz had a problem.
But he also thought that he
near eastern political intrigues,
which make the intrigues of Game of Thrones
seem like kid stuff,
don’t worry and just trust me
when I say Ahaz had a problem.
But he also thought that he
had a solution to his problem:
offer appeasement to the Assyrians
and make his nation subject to their empire
in exchange for protection from the Israelites
and letting him remain in power.
offer appeasement to the Assyrians
and make his nation subject to their empire
in exchange for protection from the Israelites
and letting him remain in power.
In today’s first reading we hear Isaiah
counseling a different path for Ahaz:
neither alliance with the Israelites
nor subjection of his people to the Assyrians,
but rather trust in the Lord—
the Lord who had rescued his people in the past
and promised them rescue in the future.
Isaiah tells him to ask
for a sign from the Lord,
any sign he wants,
to assure him of God’s protection.
But Ahaz replies with fake piety:
Oh no, I would never be so presumptuous!
But what he really means is that
he trusts the Assyrians
more than he trusts the Lord,
particularly since they will turn
a blind eye to his transgressions,
which God has denounced earlier in Isaiah,
saying that Ahaz was “crushing my people,
and grinding down the faces of the poor” (3:15).
Even more than trusting the Assyrians,
Ahaz trusted his own cleverness,
his own ability to work the angles of geopolitical intrigue.
counseling a different path for Ahaz:
neither alliance with the Israelites
nor subjection of his people to the Assyrians,
but rather trust in the Lord—
the Lord who had rescued his people in the past
and promised them rescue in the future.
Isaiah tells him to ask
for a sign from the Lord,
any sign he wants,
to assure him of God’s protection.
But Ahaz replies with fake piety:
Oh no, I would never be so presumptuous!
But what he really means is that
he trusts the Assyrians
more than he trusts the Lord,
particularly since they will turn
a blind eye to his transgressions,
which God has denounced earlier in Isaiah,
saying that Ahaz was “crushing my people,
and grinding down the faces of the poor” (3:15).
Even more than trusting the Assyrians,
Ahaz trusted his own cleverness,
his own ability to work the angles of geopolitical intrigue.
So Ahaz submitted to the Assyrians rather than to the Lord,
even taking silver and gold from the Temple treasury
to offer tribute to the Assyrian King, Tiglath-pil’eser,
and adopting Assyrian religious practices.
According to the second book of Chronicles,
Ahaz’s cleverness and intrigues did not pay off:
“Tilgath-pil’eser, king of Assyria, did indeed come to him,
but to oppress him rather than to lend strength” (28:20).
But Isaiah says that though Ahaz had rejected God’s offer
and was wearisome both to God and to God’s people,
God would still send a sign of his love to comfort his people:
“the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.”
even taking silver and gold from the Temple treasury
to offer tribute to the Assyrian King, Tiglath-pil’eser,
and adopting Assyrian religious practices.
According to the second book of Chronicles,
Ahaz’s cleverness and intrigues did not pay off:
“Tilgath-pil’eser, king of Assyria, did indeed come to him,
but to oppress him rather than to lend strength” (28:20).
But Isaiah says that though Ahaz had rejected God’s offer
and was wearisome both to God and to God’s people,
God would still send a sign of his love to comfort his people:
“the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.”
Joseph also had a problem,
a seemingly smaller problem than Ahaz,
but a problem nonetheless,
not a Game of Thrones-sized problem
of international political intrigue
but a domestic problem:
Mary, to whom he was betrothed,
was pregnant, and he was not the father.
Joseph had a problem,
but he also had a plan to solve it.
Now Joseph’s plan, unlike that of Ahaz,
did not involve deception or betrayal of God,
for, unlike the wicked Ahaz,
Joseph was “a righteous man”;
more than that, he was a merciful man.
So rather than publicly accuse Mary of adultery
and subject her to shame and possibly death,
as the Law entitled him to do,
he decided to discreetly end the betrothal.
It was a righteous plan,
indeed a merciful plan.
But it was his plan,
and God had a different plan.
For the child to be born to Mary
was the sign promised long ago through Isaiah:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’”
a seemingly smaller problem than Ahaz,
but a problem nonetheless,
not a Game of Thrones-sized problem
of international political intrigue
but a domestic problem:
Mary, to whom he was betrothed,
was pregnant, and he was not the father.
Joseph had a problem,
but he also had a plan to solve it.
Now Joseph’s plan, unlike that of Ahaz,
did not involve deception or betrayal of God,
for, unlike the wicked Ahaz,
Joseph was “a righteous man”;
more than that, he was a merciful man.
So rather than publicly accuse Mary of adultery
and subject her to shame and possibly death,
as the Law entitled him to do,
he decided to discreetly end the betrothal.
It was a righteous plan,
indeed a merciful plan.
But it was his plan,
and God had a different plan.
For the child to be born to Mary
was the sign promised long ago through Isaiah:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’”
An angel tells Joseph in a dream
not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife,
for God knew that it is fear that leads us
to cling to our own plans,
whether wicked or righteous,
rather than embracing God’s plan,
it is fear that leads us
to try to control the people and things
that are the circumstances of our lives,
rather than trust the sign
that God truly is with us.
And Joseph does as the angel bids him,
not simply because he was a righteous man
or a merciful man,
but because he was a faithful man
who trusted that God’s plan
was greater than any plan
that a human being could devise,
he was a man who truly believed
that God is with us,
and being a faithful man
made him a courageous man,
and he opened his heart and home
to the Virgin and her child.
And what about us?
We too have our problems and our plans.
Chances are, most of us don’t have
geopolitical problems like Ahaz
or wicked plans to solve them.
We are probably more like Joseph,
with family-related problems,
or work-related problems,
or school-related problems,
and our planned solutions
are probably more-or-less righteous.
But the key question is not
whether they are wicked or righteous,
but whether they are our plans or God’s.
Ahaz had a problem and a plan,
but it was not God’s plan.
Joseph had a problem and a plan,
but it was not God’s plan.
We have problems and plans,
but are they God’s plans?
The challenge posed
by the Good News that God is with us
is to set aside our plans and enter the new world
that the birth of Christ opens to us,
to set aside our desire to control our problems
by controlling people and things around us,
to set aside fear and let God work in us
deeds that surpass mere human righteousness,
deeds that surpass mere human mercy.
As the mystery of God becoming flesh
bears down upon us
in these final days of Advent,
let us pray that we, like Joseph,
might be set free from our own plans
so that we can see, as he saw,
the sign of God’s love
in the child of the Virgin,
and take him, as he did,
into our homes and our hearts,
so that God, in his mercy,
might have mercy on us all.
let us pray that we, like Joseph,
might be set free from our own plans
so that we can see, as he saw,
the sign of God’s love
in the child of the Virgin,
and take him, as he did,
into our homes and our hearts,
so that God, in his mercy,
might have mercy on us all.
