Fourth Sunday in Advent  Samuel 7:1-11,16 Magnificat,  Romans 16:25-27, Luke 1:26……….

 

Do you ever wonder if Mary really understood all that saying “yes” would hold?   Without yet being married, she was about to become pregnant in a society which would happily stone those caught in adultery – not to mention what her betrothed would think of the idea.  With the Angel’s words “Do not be afraid” ringing in her ears, I imagine her heart may have many times, been beating hard with fear.

 

Our reading comes from the Gospel of Luke.  We know from Luke’s introduction at that beginning of his book, that he was writing after other accounts had been written, and he had carefully investigated these things so that his reader, Theophilus could be assured of it’s accuracy. 

 

It is from this Gospel that we have the most complete version of the virgin birth, a stumbling block to many people, hopefully not to us, who know that all things are possible with God – after all, if God is God he can do anything.  Throughout the Bible there are stories of people who gave birth to sons whose birth was impossible without God’s intervention.  Sarah was barren and old, and it seemed Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, was headed in that direction also.  But this message to Mary is different.

 

In most of the previous instances, the Angel or message from God came to the male.  Mary spoke with the Angel directly.  In every other case the woman was married.  Mary was engaged, but still single, and had not had relations yet with Joseph.  This was a baby that would be conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.  This would be the son of God.

 

It is true that our society and the story of faith tradition has been male dominated, but here we see one of the times that God surprises all by directly visiting his Angel to Mary…. Just a young woman! 

Don’t get me wrong, It isn’t that God didn’t do this at other times.  We know that there were prophetess’s, significant women such as Abigail, Rahab, Esther, Naomi & Ruth and the Judge Deborah of the Old Testament.  I believe that God is no respecter of people, status or gender, but our cultures have been male dominated.  One thing we do know is that God delights in using those that “nice” and “influential” society would overlook. God looks with favour on, and has concern and love especially for the poor and the rejected.

 

We know that King David was the youngest of his family.  He was considered so inconsequential that he wasn’t even invited to the family feast with the prophet Samuel.  Samuel himself, was born as an answer to prayer.  His mother Hannah had prayed fervently and when Samuel was born, her praise, recorded in the Bible, is similar to the Magnificat appointed to Mary, which we read today as our psalm.

 

From the book of Samuel comes our first reading where we read that King David desired to build a house for God.  The word of the Lord comes to the prophet Nathan and we discover that God doesn’t want David to build him a house, but instead God promises to make David a house and promises that THIS house and kingdom shall be established forever.  It is a prophecy about Jesus – the descendant of David. 

 

The amazing insight we have about King David in this story, is that God was his priority.  King David was once a shepherd boy of no consequence but through God he become a great King.  Now as a great King he desires to do something for God.  David is described often as being a man after God’s own heart and the Lord’s anointed.  Now we glimpse the heart of God as we note God’s response to David’s desire to give to God.  And what do we note?  Instead of God saying, “yes… thanks for that David, I will have one of those…” He turns back with promises to establish David’s throne forever.  That little inconsequential shepherd boy is in no way inconsequential to God.

 

Mary is a young girl.  We don’t know much about her from our Bible accounts but we know that she found favour with God.  I find it interesting that the Angel’s greeting is firstly to tell Mary that she has found favour with God.  I suspect, we get so caught up in our ideas about things of faith… working out what is what with our faith and our own understanding of God, that we forget, or maybe don’t even realize, that more than anything… God loves us.

 

Knowing that God loves us is vital.  Both Mary and King David were loved by God, but that doesn’t mean that everything in their life was going to be easy.  King David faced many battles of life and death before the promises of God were fulfilled, but knowing these promises and the love of God, he was able to face those battles with integrity and faith.

 

Mary was greeted with the favour of God and told that she was chosen to bare the son of God.  It was a huge…. No, HUGE responsibility – and that is an understatement.  It was explained to her that the Holy Spirit would cause this to happen, making it completely different from others like her cousin Elizabeth, as this was to be a virgin birth.

 

Recently I had the opportunity to talk to my school students about Jesus.  I had been teaching them Christmas carols and so they had many questions.  One question was, “how did Jesus get His powers”.  And the simple answer, hopefully simple enough for the children to understand, is that Jesus is the son of God – Jesus is God inside.  For us, we say, God made flesh.

 

Mary would have hardships.  She was initially rejected by Joseph – at that point she didn’t know that he would change his mind.  To be rejected by your betrothed is hard.  To be thought of as an unfaithful adulterer is hard.   To travel to Bethlehem when you are nine months pregnant is hard.  Then to find there is no where to be housed is hard, let alone it being when you are about to give birth.  To give birth is hard.  To give birth in a strange stable must have been hard… then to try to clean up and sleep under those conditions must have also been hard.  To be told in the middle of the night to flee to Egypt had to be hard.  And the list might go on.

 

In all those hardships, Mary needed to know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that God loved her…. And that God was with her and would never leave nor forsake her…  because I’m sure there were times that it felt that surely it could have been easier.  I have no doubt that there were many tears along the way.

 

In all those hardships, it was the love of God that enabled Mary to persevere.  I have no doubt that it was also the love of God revealed to Joseph that empowered him to also take on the responsibility of Mary and the child.  I am sure that the rumours of Mary’s pregnancy, which wasn’t a child by Joseph, was known in the community.  I’m also pretty sure others didn’t believe Mary’s story of the child being from the Holy Spirit, therefore Joseph, along with Mary, must have felt the judgement of others and the burden of everyone’s opinions.

 

It is the love of God, the assurance that they found favour with God that enabled these people of God to say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  It is the love of God that enabled them to say, “YES, LORD.  Let it be with me according to your word.”

 

Our own faith journey will not always be easy.  There will be times when we will be personally challenged and there will be times when we will be challenged as a church community.  Some would even say, if we are not being persecuted for Jesus sake, are we even doing anything?  Therefore, hardships are a given.  And so we need to know that God loves us.

 

Where would we be if Mary didn’t say “yes”?  Mary said “yes” and gave birth to our salvation.  We are all called to bring Jesus to community.  We are all pregnant with the Gospel… we carry it and need to reveal the Gospel to the world.  We are all asked to say, “Yes”.  Before we do, let’s take a moment to rest in God’s presence and know that we are chosen, favoured, and we are loved.

 

Readings and reflection Wednesday the 16^th December 2020

Isaiah 45:6-26,      Luke 7:19-………..

Have you ever been passionate about a subject that no one else seemed to get?  If so, you may have found yourself trying to explain the subject and saying more or less the same thing in many different ways, in the hope that at some point the penny will drop and others will understand.

Isaiah had a lot to say.  If we can grasp the mood of the reading we notice that it is not unlike how we might get if we are passionate about a subject and trying hard to make someone understand.  There are some points that Isaiah repeats over and over, and there is a good chance that these repeated things are the main point of his message.  What did you pick up from it?  Do you recall?  “Thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), …. I am the Lord and there is no other…. “ Over and over, as if to say, “How can you not understand this?”

The people were acquainted with talk of God but who is this God and what is he like?  The reading tells us that he made the heavens, formed the earth and created human kind.  In poetic language we read that He commands the skies to shower righteousness that salvation might spring up. 

There are many things going on at the time of Isaiah, and this word was a declaration of good things, of which God wanted them to know that HE was the author.  Just as it was a word for the people of God at that time, it is an eternal truth that God is the author of the blessings of righteousness… and the fruit of that blessing is salvation.

 

Righteousness being dropped on earth like showers is like heaven coming down; the answered prayer, just as we pray the Lord’s prayer, “May your kingdom, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven”.  Salvation is the fruit that springs, and righteousness is also the fruit.  Salvation and righteousness we find in Jesus.

 

John’s disciples came to Jesus, basically asking for confirmation about what John had declared.  John, inspired by the Spirit of God, had declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God, but then, very humanly, and also wisely, asked for confirmation….

Previously, the people had asked John who he was and he answered honestly that he wasn’t the Messiah.  There was a sense of genuine inquiry and excited expectancy with the questioning of John, but with this questioning of Jesus there seems to be a sense of doubt.  Perhaps they expected something different.

Unfortunately, this is a fact of life.  We often expect something different.  The expectations that people had of the Messiah proved to be vastly different to the person that Jesus was, and this became a huge offense and a stumbling block to many.  Is God doing something now which we can’t see as being from God because it doesn’t meet our expectations.  What does our reading tell us?  “Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker; Wil you question me about my children?”

 

God is God and we have no place as the “clay” to say, “What are you making”?  We are living in such an intense time where so many things are questioned.  Even our traditional right and wrong is on trial, so how can we navigate to stay on the path of truth?  Perhaps by keeping God as God.

 

Recently I have had the opportunity to speak to children about what Christmas really means.  When they want to know how long ago it was when Jesus was born, I ask them, what year is it?   2020.  

While some theologians might quibble about the actual year, there was a time in the history of the world when people thought this event to be so significant that we needed to mark the birth of Christ by counting our years from the time of his birth.  What saddens me, is that the majority of society today don’t realize that the person, Jesus, called the Christ, is a real person.  We beg permission to teach religious instruction in state schools, seemingly forgetting that our faith is built on historical facts with eternal significance.  To omit the truth of these facts is a travesty.   No wonder we struggle to navigate the path of truth when we fail to declare facts of faith and fail to remember that God is God.

 

To answer John’s disciples, Jesus answers by pointing out the facts that were plainly seen.  He reminds them the blind see and deaf hear etc…  Jesus is pointing out that the fulfilment of the prophet’s writing is taking place.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.  He sent me to preach good news to the poor.  He sent me to give sight to the blind etc…  In other words, “It is obvious… why do you doubt?” 

 

If we look at the miracles of Jesus, then carefully examine Jesus, who is the visible expression of our God in heaven, we will see that the miracles come out of a heart of compassion and love.  It isn’t to prove that he is who he says he is that he performs miracles, but because of his mercy, his compassion and his very great love.  The miraculous healings were the fruit of Jesus Love and mercy.  However…. by this fruit we know the nature of Jesus is God.

 

In Jesus, righteousness has dropped from heaven.  Heaven has come down – the kingdom of God is on earth as it is in heaven… and the fruit of this is righteousness and salvation.

 

As Isaiah tells us, God did not speak in secret.  He has made himself abundantly clear, so why do we have so much trouble in knowing the truth? 

Is it that we are blinded by our expectations?  Is it that we are offended by the truth?  Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind.  And with the declaration of Isaiah saying, “For I am God and there is no other”, ringing in our ears we realize the deity of Christ.

 

Is our Christianity just a belief which we can adapt as it suits us ?– If so, we make God into our own image.  God is God and not our wild imaginings.  God’s word has been clearly spoken… His name is Jesus.

May we ever have our eyes opened to see beyond our expectations.  Our God is love and the fruit of his love is salvation and righteousness – all things good.  May we always know that God is God. 

Lord may your word (our Lord Jesus Christ) dwell in us and bare much fruit to your Glory.  AMEN.