Reflection - Save the Date

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122422.cfm
II Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14, 16
Luke 1:67-79

Save the date!

The card comes in the mail — a picture postcard with a brief message.

Someone is graduating. Someone is celebrating a special birthday. Someone is getting married. Some notable event is going to happen. We read the card; mark the date on our calendar; post the card on the refrigerator.

The Father sent out lots of notices. Save the date, he said. Last week we read one of the earliest of his notices, the one about non-descript Judah’s line becoming a kingly line. This week we are reminded of another ‘save-the-date’ postcard that the Father sent.

“I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his Kingdom firm.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
Your house and your Kingdom shall endure forever before me;
your throne shall stand firm forever.”

Before that the Church recalled two others for us. On the first Sunday of Advent we were asked to reflect on the time to come when our God would be universally praised and glorified. We were not given a date except to know that such an event was to be part of mankind’s future.

“In days to come,
the mountain of the LORD's house
shall be established as the highest mountain
and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it;
many peoples shall come and say:
‘Come, let us climb the LORD's mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may instruct us in his ways,
and we may walk in his paths.’”

The picture was drawn in sharper detail on the following Sunday. The day when when we learned that the Lord’s mountain would be celebrated with the coming of a descendant of Jacob.

“On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him:
a spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
a spirit of counsel and of strength,
a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD.”

These four passages are but a few of the notices the Father sent to all his people. There were many, many more. Always the message included the unspoken admonition: Save the Date!

What date? You may ask; and your question is appropriate for those who govern themselves with calendars and clocks and watches. But those of us to who time is so important have trouble with calculations made from the viewpoint of eternity. Nevertheless, as the day approached, more specific notices were sent out. The first was a notice of ‘nine months from now’ as given to our Savior’s mother. The second was the proclamation of John regarding the imminent presence of the One God had promised. So it was that Paul would confess:

“But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
(Galatians 4:4-5)

In some ways it might be useful to view the arrival of our Savior which we presently celebrate as a dress rehearsal or a trial run. After all, there remain unfulfilled prophecies in the Scriptures. He will come again. One of my favorite’s is frequently recalled at Christmas; but it’s significance is changed with the inclusion or exclusion of the second half. On the day we now recall and celebrate, Christ did not come as a stern warrior, but as an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. The text is as follows. Note how the message changes following the phrase ‘the land that was doomed.’

“For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior, carrying the sharp sword of your authentic command, and stood and filled all things with death, and touched heaven while standing on the earth.”
(Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-16)

So. The notices have been sent. Many in the Scriptures which we have not read or recognized. Still, we are left in darkness. What’s that date again?

“But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
(I Thessalonians 5:1-2)

So, there you have it! Save the Date!