The prophecy of Christ’s Incarnation
December 14, 2022 - Wednesday, 3rd Week of Advent
Psalm 85:9ab and 10, 11-12, 13-14.
We have heard this psalm already once during this Advent season on Monday, December 5. There, the psalm was preparing us for the miracle of forgiveness and healing in the Gospel’s story of a paralysed man (Luke 5:17-26). Today, the joyful proclamation of this psalm prepares us for hearing the message that Jesus delivered to John the Baptist: “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them” (Luke 7:22).
The key words in today’s psalm are kindness, truth, justice and peace. The first word, “hesed” in Hebrew, is often translated as steadfast love or mercy. Jesus’ coming into this world is the greatest proof of God’s steadfast love for us. The next word, “emet”, can be translated as truth or faithfulness. God is faithful to his promises. John the Baptist does not have to look for someone else. Jesus is the one, the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior of the world. The third word, “tsedeq”, means justice or righteousness. Jesus is our righteousness. Finally, we end with the well-known word “shalom” which means peace or well-being. Jesus is our “Shalom”, He is our peace, and in him we have well-being.
What the psalmist proclaimed as the future, “kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss”, we proclaim as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God’s mercy and His faithfulness have met, and God’s righteousness and well-being have kissed. This psalm prophesies the mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of the eternal Word of God that became flesh (John 1:14). “Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven” (Ps 85:12). Jesus says: “I am the truth” (John 14:6). How did Jesus spring out of the earth? He was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But before the Word became flesh, “the Word was with God” (John 1:1) and “all things were made through him” (John 1:3). This Word looked from heaven at our wretched conditions with compassion and came down from God to dwell among us.
At the end of our psalm, we hear that “the LORD himself will give his benefits”. The word “benefits” is actually “good”. This word appears seven times in the story of creation in Genesis 1. With the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, God again gives us what is good: deliverance from captivity, mercy, and well-being. In Jesus Christ, the Father gives us joyous life that does not know the end.