Fourth Sunday in Advent
Micah 5:2-5a
Luke 1:46b-55
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45
Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you
from the one who works for the sake of community. Amen
Here we are,
at the fourth Sunday in Advent,
our wait is almost over
and that is reflected in our texts for today,
so far this season
we’ve talked about waiting and preparing for God’s coming,
but the time has been so far undefined.
Today a deadline gets put on the waiting
as we join two divinely pregnant women
at the center of the collision between God’s time and human time
through whom it is revealed once again
how God chooses to work in the world
-in the unexpected people and places.
God has a long history of doing this,
so I’m not sure why we’re always surprised,
perhaps a better way to put it
would be that God consistently chooses
to work outside the recognized centers and patterns of power,
and we are so conditioned to gravitate toward power
and associate it with “normal”
that even though we know intellectually
that God’s pattern is to show up outside of power and normal
it still surprises us every time,
even when God tells us it’s going to happen.
We hear God’s plan reiterated from the prophet Micah.
the promise of God raising up a descendant of David
to lead and care for the people is repeated,
but this person will come not from the center of power Jerusalem
but from the small town of Bethlehem
located in the territory of one of the “lesser clans”
and this is the one who is to bring peace.
And then many years later
we are taken to a Judean town in the hill country,
the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah,
a couple who are getting on in years
and yet without children,
but five months ago
an angel appeared to Zechariah
and told him that Elizabeth would bear him a son,
that they were to name him John
and that he would prepare people for the Lord.
Zechariah
even in the face of an angel
was a bit doubtful given their ages
and for his doubt
the angel struck him mute until the birth
and then we are told “After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said, “This is what the Lord had done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”
Elizabeth had long endured the pain of infertility,
hard enough to experience as an individual or as a couple,
let alone having the community weigh in,
an experience that Elizabeth names as an experience of disgrace,
perhaps that is why
even after she conceives
she stays in seclusion for five months
- or perhaps she wanted to make sure
that she gave it enough time
for her to be certain that it was really happening,
that her pregnancy would result in a living baby.
Meanwhile the angel visits Mary for her own annunciation,
Mary is the opposite of Elizabeth,
young, not even married,
her pregnancy will also cause talk in the community,
it may cause even more than talk
if her fiancé Joseph objects
and even if he doesn’t
there will be raised eyebrows at least
and rumors of infidelity at worst.
This has the potential to be a very isolating nine months
and God has anticipated even this,
not only does John prepare the way for Jesus
but Elizabeth prepares the way for Mary.
the angel tells Mary about Elizabeth’s pregnancy
as an example of God making the impossible possible
and the first thing that we are told
that Mary does after this angelic visit
is to go with haste to visit Elizabeth,
the one person who is going to understand,
the one person who will rejoice with her,
who will wonder with her at the goodness of God
Mary goes with haste to Elizabeth,
and she bursts into Elizabeth’s isolation
and at the sound of her greeting,
John, within Elizabeth leaps,
perhaps for the first time,
and in that moment life gets very real for Elizabeth,
there really is a baby in her womb,
alive and moving around,
this isn’t a dream or an odd sickness the mirrors pregnancy,
she is going to have a baby,
and even more she is filled with the Holy Spirit
and celebrates and affirms Mary
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”
and she names her as the mother of her Lord
and blesses Mary’s belief
in the fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.
Finally, someone who gets that this pregnancy
is a faithful response to the call of God
and that it is something to be celebrated.
Yes it is unlikely,
but that’s how God works,
and Mary bursts into song,
a song that expresses her joy in God,
and names the God in whom she rejoices
as the God who chooses the lowly
who scatters the proud,
who brings down the powerful,
who fills the hungry,
because God is merciful
and God keeps the promises God makes,
including the original promise to Abraham.
This is not only a song of joy
but a theological treatise on how the past works of God
inform the present and the future
and somehow, by the goodness and mercy of God,
Mary is at the center of it all
she sings her amazement
and best of all she is not alone,
she has someone to celebrate with her,
someone whose personal experience of God is also amazing,
who also knows the stories of the relationship between their people and God
and the accuracy of Mary’s interpretation.
Mary is able to celebrate
and make sense of her experience
because she has Elizabeth,
she has a community.
God comes to us in community,
even if God has to create that community for us
(Tuesday night we will see God creating community once again
by drawing the shepherds to the manger to celebrate the birth of Jesus).
God who is a community within Godself
- because what else is the trinity but a community of Father, Son, and Spirit-
created us in the image of God
and therefore created us to be in community
In community we support one another,
weep and rejoice with one another,
make sense of our world together.
Even when community is difficult
God urges us to choose relationship over isolation,
that’s why Jesus is coming into the world after all
to heal the community of the world.
and God made sure that Jesus’ experience
would be one of community from the very beginning,
first lived through his mother and Elizabeth,
even if,
especially because
their community was created outside the centers of power,
outside of normal,
right where God likes to be. Amen
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