Light of Love

Sermon Luke 1:26-38 December 24, 2017 Advent 4

Light of Love

Last Sunday we spent our worship experience focused on the story of the birth of Jesus through the Christmas program. The children and the choir shared the news words and music. Our hope was renewed as we witnessed our children participating in the promise of God. It was truly a light of joy.

Today on the fourth Sunday of Advent we spend time reflecting on the words of Mary as she encounters the angel Gabriel. I find myself pondering on the moment of discovery for Mary.

What is it like for us in those moments of surprise?

When the unexpected comes to us?

When the derailment of our plans and our dreams occurs, what is our response?

When we are left vulnerable to our family’s opinions, cultural expectations, and the views of the world, how do we react?

Are we aware of the presence of holiness when it appears?

There is quite a lot for us to ponder on this fourth Sunday of Advent.

God does enter into ordinary lives in ordinary ways. The angel called Mary highly favored. There was nothing in Mary’s life that would have been considered as something to be highly favored. She was poor. She lived in a town that people said nothing good comes from Nazareth. She was engaged to be married to a carpenter not a statesman or a wealthy, famous person.

God does enter into a real place in time and space. 

God breaks from heaven and begins dwelling among us in the most vulnerable way. 

Life and death hang in the balance for many a mother and child. 

Pregnancy and child birth are still to this day challenging. To conceive for some is without a thought and for others a time of great disappointment, despair, and grief. 

There are so many women who have suffered in silence as one pregnancy after another is lost and the hoped for infant returns to heaven. 

Women in childbirth are still at risk even with the best doctors and equipment available. There were safer ways for God to come to us to be among us than through this risky means.

And yet, in a little town, in a little house, with a young girl, we witness something new, something that changes our lives forever.

Mary heard the words of the angel and knew that God had come to her. Holiness had invaded her space. Holiness had come.

She asked the angel Gabriel, “How can this be?” We don’t have the opportunity for tone or inflection so we have to guess. We wonder if she is afraid, or if she was incensed, or confused, or just pondering the logic of what the angel is telling her. 

She talks with the messenger of God! She is not a silent bystander. She gets involved with the work of God within her. She becomes a partner with God in this process of redemption.

 Her response to the angel is so amazing. “May it be as you say, here am I the servant of the Lord,” is not a passive resignation for God or anyone else to do what they want with us. But, it is a response of commitment and participation with the work of God in this world.

Imagine if we too heard the word of God through the angels who visit us. Imagine if we too took a stand with God and said, “May it be as you say, here am I”.

Mary as we read further in Scripture sang a song which we now call the Magnificat. 

It was a song of liberation, a song of reversals, a song of resistance and even rebellion. 

Mary took her role as the mother of God in strength and in resilience. 

She had the resolve to follow through with whatever was to come. She had the ability to stand with a task that was contrary to the current culture. She stood firm in her faith as she faced the possibility of death. She stood firm in her faith when her son grew and took the risk of death upon himself. She stood firm in her faith as she sat at the foot of the cross and watched her son die. She stood firm in her faith even as she was cared for by others in her old age.

It is so hard for us as people of faith to figure out what God is calling us to do. 

We agonize over the call God has placed on us. We wonder if we are really doing what God has asked us to do. We agonize wondering if God really loves us. Are we worthy?

 Are we doing the right thing?

And then once again the story of Mary reminds us that God has not abandoned us. 

God chose to enter the human race by means of the human race. 

God’s creation so destroyed and distorted by acts of violence upon the earth, the creatures and each other could have been destroyed in the same breath by which it was created. But, somehow God looked upon everything there and burst forth in love. 

The Light of Love chose to push through all the depravity, sin, corruption, and discord to wash it all pure again beginning with waters of the womb. Our being drawn to the Light of Love is a rebirth in the same way.

God has sent angel messengers to us to announce that we too have received the power of God through his son born to us today. Let us say yes, let it be as you say, here am I your servant. Amen.