The New Ahaz

A blessed Solemnity of the Annunciation to you!

In today’s First Reading at Mass, we hear of the promise of God to be with His people. He is Emmanuel - God with us. Always. Yet Ahaz the king did not believe this project through Isaiah. This is, however, not the first time that we have heard of King Ahaz; he is in fact a forefather of Joe (Matthew 1:9). As the genealogy of Jesus points out, there were a plethora of both saints and sinners in the family tree. Ahaz was among the “sinners”, in fact his lack of faith in the true God lead him to even sacrifice his own children to false gods (2 Chronicles 28:1-4). What a stark contrast to Joe, who because of faith, accepted a child to be his own! In a way, we can call Joe, the New Ahaz, or the Ahaz that should have been.