“Signs of God’s Love” – 4th Sunday Advent- A (12.18.22)

“Signs of God’s Love”

By: Fr. David Schmidt

Regina Coeli Parish - Church of the Assumption - Bellevue, PA

Mass Readings- https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121822.cfm

Today, I want to talk about seeking signs from God. I think it’s safe to say that each one of us in here has asked God for a sign many times throughout our lives.

We ask for signs from the Lord on what jobs we should take. Or maybe we ask for a sign from the Lord if we should move from this city or to that city. Maybe it’s a sign to show us which college I should attend. Maybe you are thinking about your vocation and you’re like ‘Should I marry this person? Or should I enter this religious vocation? Lord, give me a sign so that I can see, and so that I can know.’ Sometimes we ask for sign for things as trivial as picking a restaurant.

We look for signs from God all the time. We do this because we recognize instinctively that signs are one of the ways that God communicates with us. We see this in the first reading when the Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, approaches Ahaz, and tells Ahaz to ask for a sign. And the sign that the Lord ends up giving to Ahaz is ‘the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.’ And we saw this sign fulfilled in the Gospel passage towards the end as the Lord was fulfilling this prophecy through the prophet Isaiah.

One question we can ask ourselves today is- “When we look for signs from God what are we really looking for?”

It’s great to know if we should take a job or not, or know where the Lord is calling us to move. But at the core of it, we need to ask ourselves, “what am I really desiring when I desire for a sign from God?”

One quick story from this past week is so if you’re coming back from college, you just experienced finals week which is a brutal week and just going through it myself at one point I was studying with some classmates and we were in a couple different study groups in different rooms, and one of the girls came over to our study group and she was just kind of opening up about the little ways that the Lord had been working in her life throughout this week, and during this time which can be overwhelming with all the studying and everything. And she mentioned how there was one day where she was really hungry and she was like “Lord, I just really need some food right now.” And next thing you know she comes across a place where they are giving out free food. Then, another day she was like, “Lord, I could really use some coffee.” And she said that randomly at 4pm somewhere on campus was offering coffee. And then she told us there was one day where she was like, “Lord, I really need a highlighter.” And she goes into this first room that she happens to go into, and standing on the desk happens to be a highlighter. And she’s telling us this as she pulls out the highlighter, and she’s telling us this seriously but also kind of jokingly too. And as we were studying she said, “I’m going to place this highlighter right here just so you know that the Lord is with you and He’s going to help you out with your studies as you finish off the semester.”

So when we ask or look for a sign, this story shows us that we are in a sense asking God to show us that He loves us. When we ask for a sign we are really saying- “Lord do you love me? Do you love me enough to listen to my prayer? To listen to the desires of my heart? Show me how you love me. Give me little signs of your love for me.”

Now we ask the Lord this, not in a sense of ‘you need to prove your love to me because I don’t really trust you, so you have to prove yourself to me. Nor is it us dictating what type of sign that God must perform to show His love for us. Where if He doesn’t write the answer in the clouds then it’s all of sudden like, “Oh God doesn’t really love me because He didn’t give me the exact sign that I was looking for.” This is not what this is saying.

When we ask God for these signs of love, it’s more like how a married couple show signs of love to one another. Again, the spouse doesn’t say, “Prove to me that you love me.” But the spouses show little signs of love for each other in different ways. Each spouse instinctively looks for these signs without realizing it.

Some of these signs include:

-a husband buying his wife flowers on a random day

-the wife making her husband his favorite meal for his birthday.

-The sign of love could be as small as emptying the dishwater and doing the dishes so your spouse doesn’t have too. Or leaving little random love notes.

-Or a simple text message that says “I love you.”

Spouses give signs of their love to each other. They each look for this sign of love from the other, but they also desire for their spouse to ask for these signs. Married couples desire to show signs of love to their spouse and show their love for them.

The Lord too greatly desires to give us signs of His love for us. This is why the Lord was so distressed in the first reading when He comes to Ahaz and tells him to “Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God; let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky!” But Ahaz responds in false humility saying, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!”

God greatly desired to show His love for Ahaz through a sign. And even encouraged Ahaz to ask for the biggest sign he could think of. God was ready to give Ahaz whatever he asked for. However, Ahaz refused to ask for a sign.

But God wouldn’t let Ahaz’s refusal prevent God from giving a sign anyway. What sign does God give to Ahaz? He says, “Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary people, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.

The greatest sign that God could give us is Himself. The sign of the baby Jesus laying in the manger. The sign that God is with us. That He loves. That He cares about the desires of our heart. That He listens to our prayers. And that He will never abandoned us.

The sign of His birth prepares us for the ultimate sign of His love for us and that is the Cross. If you ever doubt God’s love for you simply look at a Nativity scene. And see the baby Jesus laying in the manger. The sign that God is with us. That He has come to earth for each of us. If you ever doubt God’s love for you simply look at a Crucifix. On the Cross we see the sign of God’s radical love for us. We see that He loves us so much He is willing to die for us.

God comes to each one of us today and asks us, “Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God; let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky!” He desires to show His love for us this day. He desires to give us a sign of His love. He desires for us to ask for the biggest sign we can think of. There is no sign to big for Him. He is also calling us to recognize those signs of His love that He puts right in front of our faces but we fail to see it.

May we not refuse our Lord’s request to ask Him for a sign so that He may show us a sign of His love. May we see today in a new way the signs of His love in the manger and on the Cross.

Lord, we humbly ask you to show your love for us this day. We ask you for a sign Lord. We ask you for a sign of your love. Show your love for us Lord. Give us a sign of your love. And help us not to miss it.