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. 

Graveside service for Baby Faith

It has been over a year now since we lost our precious granddaughter Baby Faith. I never knew how much her little life would continue to impact us everyday. My daughter and I have since written a book for children. She has written several blog articles at her blog site: https://sandhillcranelove.wordpress.com/

And even now I realize the more we write and the more we make resources available the more help this provides for other mothers and families who have experienced loss.

There were two most important gift lessons we learned. 1. Always use Baby's name. even if it is too difficult to name baby encourage this to happen-the hospital was so wonderful in making sure this was done.
2. Make sure a funeral, a prayer, a special acknowledgement is done. All this has made the difference in the months and now the year since.

Here is a sample service. It was done on the rural property of my daughter's family. May God's grace, mercy and strength be with you.

Service of Witness to the Resurrection

W

Faith Elisabeth Rodgers

February 10, 2016

February 13, 2016

Welcome

Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.

We gather here today to bring honor to the little life of our daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, and child of God, Faith Elisabeth Rodgers.

We only knew her as our hope and joy, the anticipation of all the good God has to offer us in new life.

We are here under this treasured tree, on this land, this solid ground, this earth, to which we remember holds us all together. From dust we were made and to dust we shall return. Here this space has been special and so under the canopy of this tree and the canopy of God’s love we gather now in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Scripture

Psalm 139:1-3;13-18

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
³ You search out my path and my lying down,
    and are acquainted with all my ways.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵     My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
    all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed.
¹⁷ How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
    I come to the end^[a]—I am still with you.

Mark 10:13-16

¹³ People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. ¹⁴ But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Words from the Family

Our hearts are filled with the loss of the hopes and dreams we held for the life of Baby Faith. Yet, we hold to the truth that a mother and father hold their children’s hands for but a short while and their hearts forever.

Prayer

Loving God,

Your beloved Son took children into his arms and blessed them. Give us grace that we may entrust

Baby Faith Elisabeth Rodgers to your never failing love and care. Comfort us in our sorrow; strengthen us with hope; and breathe peace into our troubled hearts. Assure us that the love in which we rejoiced for a time is not lost. The love we hold here together as a family unites us forever with each other and with you.

In our loneliness, may we remember Baby Faith in love until the eternal morning breaks.

Through Christ, in Christ, always surrounded and wrapped together in the loving arms of Jesus. Amen.

Poem

I give you this one thought to keep

I am still with you-I do not sleep

I am a thousand winds that blow

I am the diamond glints on snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain

I am the gentle autumn rain

When you waken in the morning hush,

I am the swift, uplifting rush,

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not think of me as gone-I am still

With you-in each new dawn.

Commendation

You only are immortal, the creator and maker of all. We are mortal, formed of the earth, and to the earth we shall return. This you ordained when you created us, saying, ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Give space, O Christ, to your child Baby Faith, with all your saints, where there is neither pain, nor sorrow nor sighing, but life everlasting.

Into your hand, O merciful Savior, we commend your child, Baby Faith Elisabeth Rodgers. Acknowledge we humbly pray, a sheep of your fold, a lamb of your flock, a baby of your own redeeming. Receive her into your arms of mercy, into the blessed rest of eternal peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

Benediction

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.