Isaiah 7:10-11 / Luke 1:26-38
The word "sign" in every day language can have a few meanings.
A sign can give information, as in the information given in a signboard.
A sign can also give directions, as in a road sign.
Or it can mean a symbolic happening, as in when someone says that a certain event or encounter was a sign to him.
But when the Bible uses the word "sign" as in the 1st reading, it means that God was intervening for His people.
In this case, God was pledging that He will be with king Ahaz and the prophet Isaiah was calling on king Ahaz to trust in God for deliverance rather than having recourse to a superpower.
In the gospel, God was also intervening when He sent the angel Gabriel to tell Mary that God was with her (Rejoice most highly favoured, the Lord is with you).
The world was sinking lower and lower into sin when God intervened and sent His Son, born of a woman, born a subject of the Law, to be the Saviour.
At every Mass, we celebrate God saving intervention when we respond to those words: The Lord be with you.
May our response also truly express that we want to be with the Lord so that we will be signs of His intervention and saving love to the world.