Fourth Sunday of Advent (A)
And I don’t know what the future is holdin’ in store
I don’t know where I’m goin’, I’m not sure where I’ve been
There’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me
My life is worth the livin’, I don’t need to see the end
Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air
– from the song Sweet Surrender, by John Denver
Surrender.
How does that word make you feel?
For most people, it is not a pleasant or a desirable thing, at least at first glance. It evokes feelings of defeat, failure, disgrace. It may evoke the fear of being defenseless before one’s foes, or something that is dangerous. It may evoke the shame that comes from feeling powerless over compulsions or addictions, bad habits or sins.
On the other hand, surrender can be a positive thing: the dropping of one’s defenses, in trust, in the presence of one’s beloved. The sense of feeling safe, loved, and accepted as one is. Such a surrender is not easy to achieve, though, because any surrender feels risky and generates fear and anxiety.
The idea of surrender goes against the way we usually like to see ourselves: strong, self-assured, independent, free, needing little or nothing from anyone. Surrender implies weakness and need. It implies a lack of freedom. It is difficult to admit this to ourselves, let alone to anyone else. Even when circumstances either invite or force us into some kind of surrender, we will only go as far as necessary. We will surrender something that really isn’t all that important to us in order to preserve what matters more. The ego will go to great lengths to maintain its illusion of independence and power.
Freedom does not really exist as long as we are contemplating options. It is real only when we use it – when we make a choice and commit ourselves to someone or something or some course of action. The truth is that we have all made such a choice. We have all committed ourselves to someone or something. We have all surrendered to whatever matters most for us.
What ultimately determines the choices we make in our lives? The desire to impress, to have a good reputation? The desire for success? The fear of failure? The desire for pleasure? The need to please someone else or to prove something to someone? Guilt for past failures? Pride? If we say, “To please God”, that is the preferred answer, of course. But even then, our egos are hard at work, trying to find a way to give God something but to keep for ourselves what matters most to us. If we have already surrendered to something else, then to truly surrender to God is not easy. It may take a long time. Or, there may come a time when God leads us to a point where we have to make a definitive choice. Who, or what, will we ultimately surrender to? God, or something our egos can control?
In our readings for this Sunday, we meet two people who are faced with just such a choice: King Ahaz, in our first reading, and Saint Joseph, in the Gospel reading. Let’s look at these two and the choice each one makes, and what light this can shed on our own lives.
Ahaz, when we meet him in Chapter 7 of Isaiah, is feeling the heat. To his east, Assyria is growing in power and influence, and becoming very aggressive. Other kingdoms around Judah are putting pressure on Ahaz to either join an alliance against Assyria or one with Assyria. Ahaz has reason to fear for himself and his kingdom. It’s at this moment that Isaiah brings Ahaz a word from God, an invitation to ask for and trust in God’s intervention. Ahaz is invited to trust in an assistance that goes beyond anything that mere humans can offer or comprehend. Ahaz is being asked to surrender fully to God, and not to his fears. But he doesn’t. His reply sounds pious enough – “I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!” – but it is merely a smokescreen, an attempt to hide his fear and lack of trust in God. Ahaz chooses the conventional, worldly way. He wants to stick with his political machinations and trust that they will save him and Judah. Have we ever felt an invitation to trust that the Lord can do in our lives what human power alone cannot, but then drew back and chose to trust what we ourselves understand and control instead?
In our Gospel reading, Saint Joseph is also feeling the heat. As we look at this story, it helps to remind ourselves that neither Joseph nor Mary were given the full script ahead of time. We do not know what they expected when they became betrothed to one another, but neither expected this. Joseph learns that Mary is pregnant, and finds himself caught in an impossible dilemma. Common sense tells him that Mary must have been unfaithful to him, and so he cannot marry her without dishonor to him and violation of the Law of Moses. On the other hand, Joseph does not want to expose Mary to dishonor or condemnation. He resolves to send her away “quietly”, even though the chances of success in a small town like Nazareth are small. Then an angel comes and offers him something very similar to what God offered Ahaz through Isaiah – another way to see what is happening. This is not a sin or a dishonor or anything else that common sense would call it. This is an incomprehensible gift of God, God acting in history. Joseph is invited to trust that God has done this, that God will be with Joseph and Mary, that Joseph need not surrender to fear, but surrender to God in trust and hope. Joseph is asked to transcend even common sense in order to trust and to surrender fully to God. And he does. Can we surrender fully to God – and continue to surrender fully to God – even when it may seem that common sense and the social winds around us say otherwise?
In our lives, id we are honest, we find that we have surrendered – or tried to surrender – to any number of things, including God. That kind of compromise is never satisfying in the end. Our hearts seek to be unified. We need to choose one master, one person or thing to which we surrender everything. Our own nature leads us in this way. If not God, then something else will become central.
Making God central – surrendering all to God – often takes time. For some people, there may be a single dramatic moment when they are faced with a choice like that of Ahaz or Joseph, and need to decide, once for all, to whom they will surrender their lives. For many people, that surrender happens gradually, piecemeal, over the course of our lives. We run across one area of our lives that is still given over to something else. God invites us to surrender it to Him. Assuming we say yes, God can then being grace to that part of our lives. Then, later, some other part of our lives that is still not given over to God comes up. Once again, God invites us to surrender that to Him. And so on, until everything is given over to Him.
Of course, it isn’t always a straight and steady line. Sometimes, we hesitate. Sometimes, we refuse to surrender some area of our lives. But God keeps coming, keeps inviting us to trust Him more fully, for our own good, so that He can fill more and more of our hearts with gifts beyond our comprehension. He gives us other chances to surrender and trust.
This Advent season is one of those chances. Are we aware of some area of our lives that is still not given over to God in trust, hope and love? Can we refuse to be mastered by fear, trust in God’s promises, and surrender this part of ourselves to Him as well? The more we give to God, the more He can give to us and through us to others. May we know the true peace and freedom that comes from a real surrender to God, God who alone can make us free, who alone can make us “live, live without care/ like a fish in the water, like a bird in the air”!