The fourth Sunday of the season of Advent is dedicated to the contemplation of love, namely that it was love that motivated the Father to send the Son into the world as the incarnate Christ-child. And though the lectionary readings do not mention the love of God specifically, they do focus us on that great act of love, whereby our Savior became like unto us so that we may become like Him. So, before we turn our attention to the readings for this fourth Sunday, let us remind ourselves of that most memorable of verses,

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will no perish but have everlasting life. (John 3.16)

This is the gift that we celebrate at Christmas, and the lectionary readings prepare us for that celebration by reminding us that this was the eternal plan of God from the very beginning of time.

Old Testament: Isaiah 7.10-16
Of course, this is the passage where we find God’s prediction of the virgin birth, that “the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel,” (verse 14), and this is the verse that will be cited by Matthew in today’s Gospel reading. And so it is tempting to fast forward immediately to the those events surrounding the birth of the Christ-child. However, we would be completely remiss if we ignored the original context within which this prophecy is given. And while we do not have the space here to recount the whole story, it would behoove us to linger in these chapters, specifically chapters 7-9, before jumping to the details of the Christmas story. This passage recounts the promise given through the prophet Isaiah that God would deliver the Kingdom of Judah from the enemies, even in spite of the seemingly insurmountable odds that were arrayed against them. “For before the boy knows to reject what is bad and choose what is good, the land of the two kings you dread will be abandoned.” (Verse 16) And it is this pattern then that becomes the typological precedent for the coming of Messiah. In other words, because God loves His people, He will deliver them from their enemies, whether those enemies be temporal (as with the people of Judah) or eternal (as with us and our enemy – sin).

Psalm: Psalm 80.1-7, 17-19
In the Psalm reading, “the psalmist laments Israel’s demise and asks the Lord to show favor toward his people, as he did in earlier times.” (Study Note, NET Bible) In other words, the psalmist is praying for God’s salvation specifically as that pertains to the restoration of the people of Israel. “Listen, Shepherd of Israel, who leads Joseph like a flock; you who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine on Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh. Rally your power and come to save us.” (Verses 1-2) But what is most sobering in this Psalm is that the psalmist admits that the people of Israel have reaped the just and due consequence of their sin in punishment from God, and that it is God and God alone who can must intervene on behalf of His people for their forgiveness and restoration. “Lord God of Armies, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? You fed them the bread of tears and gave them the full measure of tears to drink.  (Verse 4-5) And this is not unlike the spiritual condition of all humanity; we are too justly under the judgment of God for our sin, and He and He alone is the one who must act for our salvation. And so we pray, “Restore us, Lord, God of Armies; make your face shine on us, so that we may be saved.”

New Testament: Matthew 1.18-25
The Gospel reading for this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, then, takes us to the events leading up the birth of the Christ-child. “After his mother Mary have been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. So her husband Joseph, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.” (Verse 18-19) Obviously, Joseph was facing a perplexing dilemma, and who’s to say what we might have done under those same circumstances. But God intervened in a dream telling Joseph to take Mary as his wife. “She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Verse 21) Of course, Matthew goes on in verses 22-23 to make the point that this was in fulfillment of what God had said through the prophet Isaiah, as we saw in our Old Testament reading. And “When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord’s angel had commanded him. He married her but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son. And he named him Jesus.” (Verses 24-25) But the important point to note in this passage is that in the Christ-child, God himself has come into the world “to save His people from their sins.” 

New Testament: Romans 1.1-7
And this was God’s plan A all along, as Paul goes on to show in the New Testament reading. Of course, in the Letter to the Romans, Paul is writing to a church that he himself had never visited. He was practically a stranger to them, and so, in these introductory verses, he must establish his identity and the authority from which he writes, which he ultimately grounds in the Gospel of God. “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” (Verse 1) And it is this concept, the Gospel of God that Paul goes on to define in verses 2 thru 6 of the passage, that it was promised beforehand through the prophets in the Scriptures (verse 2), that it concerns his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, that he was a descendant of David (verse 3), appointed the powerful Son of God by the Spirit through resurrection (verse 4), and that through Him, we have been given a mission to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name throughout the nations (verse 5). The point being that this was God’s plan all along from eternity past to eternity future, the Gospel of God is the script by which history unfolds. And the coming of Christ, both in His first Advent and in His second, is the cornerstone of that Gospel.

And so, we return to where we began, that the Gospel of God is nothing less than the expression of His love for His people, and that is what we celebrate at Christmas. God himself entered into the creation as the Christ-child incarnate to save His people from their sins. And thanks be to God for giving us this gift.

For further study:
On the Season of Advent
On the First Sunday of Advent
On the Second Sunday of Advent
On the Third Sunday of Advent