The Fourth Sunday of Advent
“No Greater Love” by Colton G.
I Will Not Tempt the Lord
By Renee Rodin
I will not tempt the Lord.
But doesn’t it seem like the Lord wants to be tempted? “Let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky!” Come on, Ahaz, ask for a sign. God wants to give you one. God wants to do something wonderful, divine, something impossible only God can do. And isn’t that what being in love is all about—impressing even yourself with the heights and depths and breadths of what you will do for the one you love? Who more of a romantic than the Creator? God wants to do this for you, Ahaz.
But perhaps it is Ahaz who is afraid of being tempted?
If you have ever prayed for something, longed for something, begged God for something, then you, like Ahaz, like Ahaz’s people—like me—have probably been through many waves of praying, bargaining, begging, stubbornly wrestling for your blessing, offering Mary’s surrender, waiting. I have often been afraid, like Ahaz, that to ask for the great thing tempts me into reducing God to the dispenser of my blessing, a spiritual Pez dispenser with the Almighty’s head. We live in the paradox of Mary and Joseph’s acceptance of the unexpected, inconvenient, the scandalous, and God’s offer of the spectacular.
So here is Christmas. The spectacular arrives. Perhaps this year, you feel like you are again practicing the mystery of God-with-us in inconvenience, squalor, or misery. Perhaps, still, Emmanuel feels like a hidden sign in the wretched, wicked world. But the Star of the East pierces through the clouds. God wants our wanting: our dreams, our hopes, our biggest, deepest desires. Ask. Let it be deep as the netherworld or high as the sky. There’s nowhere you can want or nothing you can desire where the star’s light will not reach you. And one day, the impossible will be manifest, lying in a manger.
Renée Darline Roden is a journalist and playwright who edits Roundtable, a newsletter of CatholicWorker.org, and serves as a fellow for Jesuit Media Lab. You can read more of her writing at Sweet Unrest.
Colton G. is a watercolor and sacred artist who does watercolors of the Christ, Mary, and the Saints. You can learn more about him here.