(Please read the Scripture passages first, before the homily.)
The ancient Romans had many gods, as did many nations at that time. They had male and female gods, married gods, child and adolescent gods. They were like humans, but to a super degree. They had human feelings and behavior, but to a super-human degree.
We likewise tend to attribute to God our human feelings and attitudes. We tend to see God as angry, pleased, upset, punishing and distant. We tend to look upon God as portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures as a vengeful God and the God of the New Testament as a loving, merciful God.
In reality, however, the God of the ancient prophets is the same as the God of Jesus. If Jesus is compassionate, it is because the God of the ancient prophets is also compassionate. The Scripture readings for the first part of Advent give us pictures of God from the Hebrew Scriptures with Gospel passages that show Jesus as fulfilling the ancient picture of God by the way Jesus speaks and acts. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures is the same God as the God of Jesus.
The prophet Isaiah gives us a beautiful and panoramic view of the splendor of God and the unbounded care God has for all creation. We should hear the words of Jesus in the passage from the Gospel according to Matthew as fulfilling the passage from Isaiah.
Jesus invites all those who labor and are weary to come to him. In our struggles to remain faithful to God, in our struggles with the pandemic, in our struggles with our families, in our political struggles, in everything that causes us pain, grief or discomfort, Jesus says, “Come to me and I will give your rest.”
This is the God of the ancient prophets, the God of Jesus, the God of Advent. When we read the two passage together, we should see the earlier passages being fulfilled in the later passage.
It is not a question that God has super-human qualities, but that God bestows on us humans God’s own qualities. The benevolence of God challenges us to be benevolent. The God of the Prophets, who is the God of Jesus, wants us to imitate God’s divine virtues in our lives. We should imitate God; God does not imitate us.