• II Samuel 7: 1-11, 16

Now that King David is settled in a permanent home, he wants to build a permanent home for the “ark of God,” which had always been housed in a tent or in a portable vehicle for easy movement.  David tells Nathan of his plan and, at first, the prophet agrees.  But overnight, Nathan heard from the Lord a different message.  He is told to remind David that the Lord has been with David from the very beginning when he was tending sheep as a boy up until now, when he is a prince/shepherd over Israel.  While Nathan’s message to David does not endorse the King’s plan for a permanent home for the ark [that task will fall to his son], it includes two new, major promises: “I will make of you a great nation,” and “your house shall be established forever.”

• Psalm 89: 1-4

The psalmist celebrates God’s faithfulness as shown specifically in the fortunes of David and his throne, which will last “for all generations.”

• Romans 16: 25-27

This closing doxology at the end of the letter to the Romans, whether by Paul or a later editor, reaches wide– to the past, present and future.  God’s “mystery” was made known through the ancient prophets, it is now known in Christ, to whom be glory forever.

• Luke 1: 26-38

Relying on announcement/birth narratives from the Hebrew Scriptures for Ishmael, Isaac, Samson and Samuel, Luke closely follows these precedents, but introduces something totally new.  He carefully details how the announcement to Mary and her response will be the fulfillment of the ancient promise to David that his throne will last “forever.”  The announcement also tells how a barren woman, Elizabeth, will miraculously conceive a son, John the Baptizer.  But Mary’s situation entails something totally new: Although she is still a virgin who has never slept with her betrothed, Joseph, she will bear a son.  This totally new thing will be accomplished because “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”

Discussing the momentous promise made to David in today’s first reading, Walter Brueggemann calls it “the interpretive pivot of messianism in Israel.”   He goes further:

it is a “genuine novum in Israel’s faith.  In one sweeping assurance, the conditional ‘if’ of the Mosaic Torah (Exod 19: 5-6) is overridden and David is made the vehicle and carrier of Yahweh’s unqualified grace in Israel.  This statement may be regarded as the beginning point for graciousness without qualification….”  (Theology of the Old Testament, pp 604-605

In his classic study of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, The Birth of the Messiah,  Raymond Brown concludes that Luke carefully crafts his narrative to make it clear to his readers that Jesus’ birth is in fact the fulfillment of God’s promise to David, but it is even more.  Luke’s innovation is “consistent with a theology of a new creation wherein God’s Spirit, active in the first creation of life (Gen 1:2), was active again.”  (p. 299)

If for the readings and gospel of Advent III we invoked Derrida, (see last Sunday’s commentary), now we call upon Jean-Luc Marion.  John Caputo neatly draws the distinction between these two writers: “For Marion the sign for ‘God’ is flooded by giveness, for Derrida it is a dry…  aspiration for I know not what.” (God, the Gift and Postmodernism, p. 199) 

Caputo continues: “For Marion the Messiah has already come, hypergiveness has already overtaken us, and it is a question of having eyes to see and the ears to hear and the songs to sing about what has already happened.” ( p. 218)  Now in Marion’s own words from God Without Being:

“Love is not spoken, in the end, it is made,  Only then can discourse be reborn, but as enjoyment, a jubilation, a praise.”  (p. 107)  “we believe in the God who gives (back) life.” (p. 86)  “A gift, and this one [Christ] above all, does not require first that one explain it, but indeed that we receive it.”  (p. 162)

This Sunday’s first reading includes something totally new in the history of God’s relationship with Israel– David is made the “vehicle and carrier of Yahweh’s unqualified grace [emphasis added],” as Brueggemann tells us.  Luke’s announcement to Mary is crafted to signal that God is about to do something totally new again, an even more staggering expression of God’s grace, this time in the son she is bearing, which is the result of the “Holy Spirit,” the same Spirit active at creation!

Overwhelming every human (pre) conception outstripping every (prior) experience of love, out performing every (previous) encounter with generosity, so far beyond any capability for human measurement that it cannot be extrapolated from human invention, the distinctive claim of biblical narratives takes a new twist: the love of God,  which made all things, is ready to make all things new gain!  With this God, all things are possible. 

The paradoxes are amazing.  A young girl becomes God’s willing accomplice.  In John Donne’s wonderful phrase in his poem “Annunciation,” Mary becomes “thy Maker’s maker and the Father’s mother.”  Through her wondrous willingness, a descendant of David will be born to this virgin, thus fulfilling the ancient prophecy; and he will be shown before his life ends to be the supreme sign of God’s love for all creation.