Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.... And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.
Today is the 4th Sunday of Advent, and I'm going to bet that most of you have your Christmas trees up, am I right? Been to a party or two already? And you've probably even snuck in a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie or two? I even bet that one or two of you have sung a Christmas carol already? It's OK, I won't tell. Things are getting close. Just a few more days. Advent is a time when we are full of anticipation. We are ripe with expectation. We are pregnant with the spirit of Christmas.
One way to think about Advent is as the season of pregnancy – it is the season of waiting and watching, of rejoicing and preparing for the future. All of these things are pretty common when a married couple is expecting a child. In most cases, when the baby is planned and there is strong support for the expectant mother, there is a genuine spirit of joy and excitement about the arrival of a new baby. We can hear that joy and excitement just a few verses before our Gospel in Elizabeth, who had been unable to conceive a child until late in life. She sees her baby as a gift from God.
But for Mary, things are different. She receives ambiguous news from the angel Gabriel when he said that she would bear the Son of God. Ambiguous because yes, she certainly understands the honor and blessing that God is giving her. But at the same time, she isn't married, and she doesn't know if the man she's engaged to will be so thrilled with the fact that she is already expecting a child. Should she be rejoicing? Does her baby have any future to look forward to?
Over the centuries, there have been a lot different interpretations of Mary. Sometimes, she has been shown as joyful, as you heard in today's canticle; the Magnificat is a song of praise and joy. Sometimes, she has been depicted as a confused and fearful teenager, as we saw in the skit a few minutes ago. Sometimes, she has been portrayed as a powerful heroine, as you'll hear when the choir sings the anthem in a few minutes. The fact of the matter is that Mary is all of these. She has always been a figure of joy and sorrow, of strength and submission. And because of this, she represents something of the ambiguity of Advent.
We've talked a lot over the past four weeks about how Advent has two sides – that's what ambiguity means, two sided. Last week, the lessons were about how we are called to both rejoice and repent! The week before we talked about soap and fire. And the week before that we talked about it being a time that is already, and not yet. These are all ways of describing this time of the year when we we prepare for Christ's coming and his coming again. A time when we think about the one who was, and is, and is to come – Jesus Christ.
We live in a time when there is ambiguity all around us. We live in a time when everywhere we look, Christmas seems to be just another excuse for people to spend more money than they have. We live in a time when the economic and financial wealth have become the primary measures of our strength as a nation; a time when there are more millionaires than ever – and yet more people have are looking for work than at any time in the past 20 years. We live in a time when our government leaders on both the state and federal level seem to take more pride in making each other look bad, than in the quality of their governing. We live in a time when food is more abundant than ever, and yet people continue to starve in many parts of the world.
But here we are presented with the ambiguous picture of Mary, the one who is blessed because she believed that God's promises would be fulfilled. She is pregnant, even though she has no husband; she is joyful, even though her future is filled with anxiety and pain. She is humble, even though God has exalted her over all others And through it all, Mary's song proclaims the unambiguous promises of God.
God will show mercy on those who trust and fear him. God will protect those who rely on him. God will lift the poor over the proud and the powerful. God will feed the hungry.
And God will do all these things through the child that Mary is carrying, Jesus Christ. Mary's proclamation is a that through Christ, God will bring about a world of justice and peace, and in so doing, she becomes part of God's saving action in the world. In her song, Mary claims her role in God's saving action. She is theotokos, the God bearer.
But what about us? How do we fit into God's plan for justice and peace? Well, I believe that if we believe that through our participation in the Eucharist, Christ becomes part of our body, then we each become a bit like Mary – we also become part of God's saving action in the world. Through the the sacrament of Holy Communion, Christ comes to live in us, and we each become pregnant with him – we become Christ bearers. And so we become the means by which God fulfills that which is spoken to us in Scripture.
Advent is a time when we look forward in hope for the living God. It is a time when we prepare ourselves for the arrival of God-in-us, Emmanuel. Come Emmanuel. Come live within us, so that like Mary, our souls can magnify the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
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