Here am I
Advent 4B
December 21, 2008
Lesson: Luke 1:26-38 Magnificat Luke 1: 46-55
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.
I do love Christmas. I don’t care for the rush, the shopping, the tyranny of the calendar. I’ve a friend spending this year in New Zealand, and she tells me that when she goes into a store there, she can hardly tell it’s Christmas. I’m perhaps as jealous over that detail as I am over her entire stay in that wondrous country.
But it’s not the commercialization that bothers, me, though that is the complaint you hear from pulpits and from those weary of Santa and tinsel and mistletoe. Rather, it’s the rush. More specifically, it’s my rush. I had hoped that somehow the changes wrought by ordination would make me magically immune to the rush of the season, somehow spiritually protected from the timetable leading to the 25th.
But no. There’s no immunity in Holy Orders. The clock that ticks, ticks for thee. So on I rush, and on I forget things. And on I drop and fall behind and fret. And that makes me just as prone as anyone to let my eyes glaze over when it comes to the meaning of Christmas. To the meaning we attach to this waiting season of Advent. I’ll forget, and become snappish, and just perhaps someone less than a joy to be with.
The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”
I become snappish because of deadlines that come rushing at me, as fast as any I ever faced on a news desk. Because I am relying on myself to get it all done.
What a deadline faced our Mother, the Virgin Mary. It’s hard to know what she understood of the angel and her pregnancy and the life she would lead. All we know is that she said, “let it be with me according to your word.” And she relaxed. Tasked with the single most amazing birth the world would ever know, all she had to say was, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
She said that because she took seriously what the angel, the messenger of God, had to say. Gabriel says, “Do not be afraid,” and Mary agrees. She doesn’t fret over it. She doesn’t argue it out. She simply agrees. She knows it is not a time to be afraid, no matter how fearsome the future may be. No matter how upside-down her life must become. No matter how much heartache this new life would hold, she simply agrees. She agrees to be unafraid.
And I am amazed. No matter how many times I read her story, the story of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus, I am amazed. At how Mary said yes. At how Joseph said yes. And at how many times I say no. No, I will fret and lose faith. No, I will be afraid.
Mary went to see her relative Elizabeth, who also was great with child. And Mary said, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; * for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.”
Mary had been chosen young – probably shockingly young by our modern standards – and woefully unprepared for this great task. She was to raise Jesus, God made man. She was to raise him from infancy. They would be chased out of Israel, seeking safety in Egypt from a despot seeking to kill him. She would raise him in a simple family and watch him leave home for a dangerous ministry. She would watch him be persecuted, watch her firstborn son be tortured and left to die on a cross.
Had she known that this lay ahead, would she have said yes? I suspect the answer is yes. I suspect that she would have said, nonetheless, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
Because you see, she didn’t bother to ask what it would be like. She didn’t try to figure out the consequences. And this isn’t the false bravado of the job applicant, or even the naivete of an inexperienced girl. This is the firm faith of a servant. This is Mary saying, “You say don’t be afraid. OK then, I won’t.”
Mary said, “From this day all generations will call me blessed: * the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him * in every generation.”
This is where I fall fall short. It’s human nature. I see a difficult task and wonder, “Why me, Lord?” I experience illness and bad luck and difficulty, and I feel afflicted. My friends are struck down and there is tragedy in this world, and I ask, “Why us, Lord?”
Mary did not dwell on why, but immediately counted her blessings. Elizabeth was old and frail and clearly John’s birth was a miracle. All you had to do was look at her to know that.
But Mary was young and vigorous, and no one looking at her would know what miracle lay in her womb.
Except for the fact of her joy, her integrity in the knowledge that the world was being turned upside down. Mary, whose great joy at the Savior’s birth and whose great sorrow at his crucifixion – Mary, whose great poise, whose great, joyous faith would be remembered by the Evangelists. Mary shows me how to be blessed. How to say, “Whatever your will for me and my life, O Lord, I do not ask why me? But rather, Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
Mary said, “He has shown the strength of his arm, * he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, * and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, * and the rich he has sent away empty.”
It is easy in this time of economic turmoil to wish hardship on those who have reaped while others went without. It is so tempting to laugh at those in the news whose greed has led to being stripped of all their riches. Some of us want to say that the Lord has done this, that the Lord is passing judgment on others. Not judgment on me, of course, but on others.
Not Mary. She does not say that Herod will get his, or that You tax collectors better watch out! She does not pass judgment on this one or that one or try to claim the Lord’s name in doing so.
No, not Mary. She puts it all in God’s hands. And she does not say that God is doing these things in our times in ways that we can see and understand. She does not say that God is doing our will. Rather, she knows that God’s will is being done in God’s time, in ways that only God can see and understand.
She knows that the arrival of the Messiah means a change in the order of things. Many Jews expected a Messiah who would rework our earthly politics, casting down the rulers and lifting up the politically oppressed. But Mary already knows that there is more to our lives – more to the world – more to the universe than earthly power. She knows already that to one, Jesus will say “You are healed, go forth and sin no more.” He will say to another, “Your demons are gone.” And to yet another, “Go and give away all that you have.”
Mary knows already that some – including the oppressed, the poor, and the weary, will be lifted up. And that others – including the powerful, the rich, the belligerent – will be cast down. That our earthly status means nothing in the Kingdom of Heaven.
We call Mary our Mother because she was, of course, the earthly mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. But she was more than a mere physical vessel. She was an evangelist of the Messiah before his birth. She preached in word and deed the humbleness that we ourselves must show when being chosen to be followers of Christ.
She showed in her words and actions that to be chosen is to be blessed – even though our earthly travels may involve pain and hardship and much sorrow.
And she showed in her words and actions that God keeps God’s promises. That the promises he made to his earliest followers still are kept. That the promises he made to Mary still are kept. That the word preached by Jesus is still the word we hear today, the word we rely on for eternal salvation.
That when God comes to us in whatever form and says, “Do not be afraid,” we have reason to believe. That we are right to have faith. That we are right, no matter our circumstances, to stand up and say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
Mary said, “He has come to the help of his servant Israel, * for he has remembered his promise of mercy, The promise he made to our fathers, * to Abraham and his children for ever.”
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: * as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
December 21, 2008
Lesson: Luke 1:26-38 Magnificat Luke 1: 46-55
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.
I do love Christmas. I don’t care for the rush, the shopping, the tyranny of the calendar. I’ve a friend spending this year in New Zealand, and she tells me that when she goes into a store there, she can hardly tell it’s Christmas. I’m perhaps as jealous over that detail as I am over her entire stay in that wondrous country.
But it’s not the commercialization that bothers, me, though that is the complaint you hear from pulpits and from those weary of Santa and tinsel and mistletoe. Rather, it’s the rush. More specifically, it’s my rush. I had hoped that somehow the changes wrought by ordination would make me magically immune to the rush of the season, somehow spiritually protected from the timetable leading to the 25th.
But no. There’s no immunity in Holy Orders. The clock that ticks, ticks for thee. So on I rush, and on I forget things. And on I drop and fall behind and fret. And that makes me just as prone as anyone to let my eyes glaze over when it comes to the meaning of Christmas. To the meaning we attach to this waiting season of Advent. I’ll forget, and become snappish, and just perhaps someone less than a joy to be with.
The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”
I become snappish because of deadlines that come rushing at me, as fast as any I ever faced on a news desk. Because I am relying on myself to get it all done.
What a deadline faced our Mother, the Virgin Mary. It’s hard to know what she understood of the angel and her pregnancy and the life she would lead. All we know is that she said, “let it be with me according to your word.” And she relaxed. Tasked with the single most amazing birth the world would ever know, all she had to say was, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
She said that because she took seriously what the angel, the messenger of God, had to say. Gabriel says, “Do not be afraid,” and Mary agrees. She doesn’t fret over it. She doesn’t argue it out. She simply agrees. She knows it is not a time to be afraid, no matter how fearsome the future may be. No matter how upside-down her life must become. No matter how much heartache this new life would hold, she simply agrees. She agrees to be unafraid.
And I am amazed. No matter how many times I read her story, the story of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus, I am amazed. At how Mary said yes. At how Joseph said yes. And at how many times I say no. No, I will fret and lose faith. No, I will be afraid.
Mary went to see her relative Elizabeth, who also was great with child. And Mary said, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; * for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.”
Mary had been chosen young – probably shockingly young by our modern standards – and woefully unprepared for this great task. She was to raise Jesus, God made man. She was to raise him from infancy. They would be chased out of Israel, seeking safety in Egypt from a despot seeking to kill him. She would raise him in a simple family and watch him leave home for a dangerous ministry. She would watch him be persecuted, watch her firstborn son be tortured and left to die on a cross.
Had she known that this lay ahead, would she have said yes? I suspect the answer is yes. I suspect that she would have said, nonetheless, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
Because you see, she didn’t bother to ask what it would be like. She didn’t try to figure out the consequences. And this isn’t the false bravado of the job applicant, or even the naivete of an inexperienced girl. This is the firm faith of a servant. This is Mary saying, “You say don’t be afraid. OK then, I won’t.”
Mary said, “From this day all generations will call me blessed: * the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him * in every generation.”
This is where I fall fall short. It’s human nature. I see a difficult task and wonder, “Why me, Lord?” I experience illness and bad luck and difficulty, and I feel afflicted. My friends are struck down and there is tragedy in this world, and I ask, “Why us, Lord?”
Mary did not dwell on why, but immediately counted her blessings. Elizabeth was old and frail and clearly John’s birth was a miracle. All you had to do was look at her to know that.
But Mary was young and vigorous, and no one looking at her would know what miracle lay in her womb.
Except for the fact of her joy, her integrity in the knowledge that the world was being turned upside down. Mary, whose great joy at the Savior’s birth and whose great sorrow at his crucifixion – Mary, whose great poise, whose great, joyous faith would be remembered by the Evangelists. Mary shows me how to be blessed. How to say, “Whatever your will for me and my life, O Lord, I do not ask why me? But rather, Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
Mary said, “He has shown the strength of his arm, * he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, * and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, * and the rich he has sent away empty.”
It is easy in this time of economic turmoil to wish hardship on those who have reaped while others went without. It is so tempting to laugh at those in the news whose greed has led to being stripped of all their riches. Some of us want to say that the Lord has done this, that the Lord is passing judgment on others. Not judgment on me, of course, but on others.
Not Mary. She does not say that Herod will get his, or that You tax collectors better watch out! She does not pass judgment on this one or that one or try to claim the Lord’s name in doing so.
No, not Mary. She puts it all in God’s hands. And she does not say that God is doing these things in our times in ways that we can see and understand. She does not say that God is doing our will. Rather, she knows that God’s will is being done in God’s time, in ways that only God can see and understand.
She knows that the arrival of the Messiah means a change in the order of things. Many Jews expected a Messiah who would rework our earthly politics, casting down the rulers and lifting up the politically oppressed. But Mary already knows that there is more to our lives – more to the world – more to the universe than earthly power. She knows already that to one, Jesus will say “You are healed, go forth and sin no more.” He will say to another, “Your demons are gone.” And to yet another, “Go and give away all that you have.”
Mary knows already that some – including the oppressed, the poor, and the weary, will be lifted up. And that others – including the powerful, the rich, the belligerent – will be cast down. That our earthly status means nothing in the Kingdom of Heaven.
We call Mary our Mother because she was, of course, the earthly mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. But she was more than a mere physical vessel. She was an evangelist of the Messiah before his birth. She preached in word and deed the humbleness that we ourselves must show when being chosen to be followers of Christ.
She showed in her words and actions that to be chosen is to be blessed – even though our earthly travels may involve pain and hardship and much sorrow.
And she showed in her words and actions that God keeps God’s promises. That the promises he made to his earliest followers still are kept. That the promises he made to Mary still are kept. That the word preached by Jesus is still the word we hear today, the word we rely on for eternal salvation.
That when God comes to us in whatever form and says, “Do not be afraid,” we have reason to believe. That we are right to have faith. That we are right, no matter our circumstances, to stand up and say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
Mary said, “He has come to the help of his servant Israel, * for he has remembered his promise of mercy, The promise he made to our fathers, * to Abraham and his children for ever.”
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: * as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
posted by Michael+ at 8:45 PM
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