Advent 4 - Year B

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Good morning.

 

We have some wonderful readings this morning.

 

We have the Gospel reading with the iconic faith statement by Mary:

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’

And,  we have the Song of Mary also known as the Magnificat.

Let’s start by having a closer look at the “Song of Mary” which we heard this morning in the usual place of the psalm.

 

The Song of Mary is also from Luke’s Gospel shortly after the Gospel reading for today:

 

46 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name.
50His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation.   (Luke 1:46-50)

 

When we think about how Mary must have been feeling, it seems clear that she was experiencing great joy - and with good reason we might add.

 

To have found favour with God, to have had the experience of encountering Gabriel and the Holy Spirit, to have given assent to the invitation of God and to have had her faith affirmed when she later visited her relative Elizabeth would have been an extraordinary experience.

 

The line of thought that I would like us to explore this morning is that while Mary’s experience of joy is unique and of cosmic significance, it may also be the experience of us all as we embrace the journey of faith, although maybe on a lesser scale.

 

Sometimes this peace and joy might be associated with what we believe is an answer to prayer.

Sometimes this peace and joy might be associated with a new insight or understanding.

Sometimes it might be associated with our committing ourselves to do what we understand to be

 

God’s will in a particular situation even though that might appear to be costly.

 

Sometimes this peace and joy might be associated with receiving the sacraments.

 

It is these experiences of peace and joy that help to affirm our faith and sustain us as we continue the journey of faith.

 

However, we know that the faith journey also contains periods when we seem to be a long way from peace and joy.

 

If we think back over our faith journeys, it often appears as a series of cycles with a somewhat similar pattern.

 

Sometimes we find ourselves in a state that I described to myself as “a bit of a mess”.

 

By a bit of a mess, I mean such as: a lack of peace; or just a general feeling of disquiet; maybe we struggle with doubts; maybe we are trying to live with strained or even broken relationships or maybe we are feeling disconnected from God.

 

We see plenty of examples of this in the psalms, for example:

 

I waited patiently for the Lord;
   he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2He drew me up from the desolate pit,*
   out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
   making my steps secure.
3He put a new song in my mouth,
   a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
   and put their trust in the Lord. (Psalm 40: 1-3)

 

Being in the psalmist “pit or miry bog” is certainly my experience from time to time and I expect it is the experience of all of us. .......??.....

 

Fortunately, as Christians, when we find ourselves in such a mess, we can remember or be reminded of the promise of hope that we have from God.

 

We soon realise that to access this hope we often need to stop doing what it was that got us into the mess in the first place.

 

That is, we often realise that we ended up in the mess by using our free will to do things contrary to what God would have preferred for us.

 

Fortunately, we can use our free will, aided by grace, to repent.

 

To repent means to turn away from what we were doing wrong and to turn to God.

 

When we turn to God and seek forgiveness, the forgiveness is freely available.

 

The assumption here is that we intend to try to do God’s will.

 

God’s will may not always be clear and some clarification may be necessary.

 

Sometimes God’s will might well be a bit of a challenge.

 

The faith journey, walking the way of Jesus, inevitably calls us to die to self.

 

However, when we find ourselves aligned with God’s will, we experience a sense of peace and joy – the peace that passes all understanding – the joy that Mary sang of in the Magnificat.

 

Mary’s joy can be understood as the joy of new life that follows the commitment to die to self.

 

Even though we may have such experiences, we also seem to lapse into error: end up in a bit of a mess again and the pattern repeats itself.

 

The pattern is:

 

Being in a bit of a mess: theologically the mess is “eating of the apple”.

 

Remembering / being reminded of the hope we have: the messages of hope as in the OT and, of course, the ultimate hope of the Gospel.

 

Turning away from what we were doing

 

Turning to God and receiving forgiveness.

 

Attempting to be open to God’s will for us and indeed committing ourselves to  that. (dying to self)

In doing this, we recover that sense of peace and joy.(new life)

 

The pattern that I have presented is, in fact, reflected in the decisions and promises in the Baptismal service: I repent of my sins, I renounce/ reject all that is evil, I turn to Christ, and I will attempt to live as a disciple of Christ (with God’s help).  (See page 56 of the prayer book) We renew our baptismal promises each Easter and it is useful to remind ourselves of them from time to time.

 

So let’s think about this pattern a bit further in the context of the themes of Advent. Today is the last of the four Sundays of Advent leading us to Christmas.

 

During Advent 1 Rev Jan spent some time considering the significance of lament. Lament is a valuable process where we express / acknowledge that we are in a bit of a mess (individually or collectively). The Book of Psalms contains quite a few laments. Lamenting often helps us to clarify the problem or the mess we are in.

 

We have also spent time pondering the messages of hope recorded in the Old and New Testaments.

We have been reminded of the call of the prophets to repent – particularly by John the Baptist.

 

Tiffany spoke with us on the second Sunday of Advent and considered how we might hear the prophetic word in our own time.

 

On the third Sunday of Advent, Melissa emphasised the importance of preparing really well for the coming of the Lord.

 

This preparation possibly involves working through some of the pattern we have been discussing.

Sometimes it appears that we have to wait and listen.

 

The Gospel reading today records Mary’s response to Gabriel.

 

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’

This tells us that God also waits for us.

We are created with free will.

It has to be that way in order for there to be authentic relationships between God and humankind.

Without free will, we would simply be like robots.

With free will, the pattern of the faith journey that we have been talking about is a natural outcome.

God invites us to turn to God’s self but God does not force it.

 

The painting in the window at St Matthew’s illustrates this point well. The painting is a copy of the famous painting by Holman Hunt entitled “The Light of The World”. It is an interpretation of a verse from Revelation:

 

“Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking;

If you hear my voice and open the door,

I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” (Rev 3:20)

 

(invite those at St Matthew’s to have a look)

 

A close look at the painting reveals that the door has no handle on the outside. The artist was amplifying the point that it is each of us who must open the door of our hearts. God may well knock but God will wait.

 

Sometimes we lament that we have to wait on God but most of the time, it is God waiting for us - God

waiting for us to open the door.

 

God waiting for us to walk the way of Jesus.

 

God waiting for us to say with Mary:

 

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’

When we truly say this with our hearts, we experience the peace and joy that Mary sings of:

‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour’
When Mary gave assent to the will of God, the Christ child was born.

When we give assent to the will of God, Christ becomes real for us.

 

This Christmas is a good time for all of us to make the angels sing again.

 

Let us all say together with Mary:

Here we are

The servants of the Lord

Let it be with us

According to your word.                Amen.