Isaiah 7:10-14

Annunciation of the Lord - Years A, B, C

Ahaz refused to ask for a sign. According to Mary’s response to an external announcement about being a sign, she hadn’t even known that asking was an option. Where have you been on this scale regarding your own engagement with signs?

Every season and generation stands in need of a sign for it’s time that they not be wearied or helpless. Would that signs were clearer for we may have already had a sign for us that we missed and so we continue to devolve our trust of one another and GD. In recent days we have received an unexpected sign from Pope Francis when he criticized the church for putting dogma before love, and for prioritizing moral doctrines over serving the poor and marginalized. We will see what will come of that challenge to the principalities and power—actual change or assassination.

If there is not a sign we will make one up. So it is with the date of March 25 wherein an Annunciation to Mary is given on a theorized anniversary of Anno Mundi (in the Year of the World) to honor a birth of creation. This conveniently works out to 9 months before December 25. We now know there is not going to be a known moment of creation. Neither religious or scientific counting of biblical generations or calculation of the speed of universe expansion is going to give us a definitive answer.

What would it mean for us to live without a sign, whether GD wants to offer one or not?

While living in a tropical clime for a Christmas season, I noticed how tied to our signs we become. No snow, no pine trees—can this really be Christmas?

In being tied to our signs we reduce our option to be ready for a new sign.

This may be the difference between Ahaz and Mary—a willingness to have a new sign. It might even be put this way: “Choose this day what sign you will abide by; as for myself, it is a next sign.”

As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience

Since the 2nd century this passage has been a dividing passage between people. Is it a Jewish prophetic story about some young woman available for seeing by both Ahaz and Isaiah? Is it a Christian story presaging a young Mary, generations in the future? It even divides Christians depending upon their theological need as reflected upon in The New Interpreter’s Bible, “Texts such as this one, especially when read in the context of Christian worship, sharpen the tension between the historical meaning and the homiletical or theological interpretation of the Bible, and of the Old Testament in particular.”

Speculation has it that the “young woman” was passing by or was Isaiah’s wife (8:1-4) or was Ahaz’s Queen, Abijah (Abi), who gave birth to Hezekiah (Immanuel?), a mirror image of Ahaz and later counseled by Isaiah.

What do you mark as a significant beginning spot. A big bang? a big asteroid? a new relationship? your own conception? a particular war? a philosophic insight? The pious denial of a sign by Ahaz or the subsequent eagle-eye of Isaiah to note a pregnant woman? Starting points are important as they shape what we will subsequently note as confirmation. Later an alternative starting point is cause for censorship and revolution. Any idea what our next agreed upon starting point will be and how long it will last?

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/03/isaiah-710-14.html