News for you!
...Father Riley will lead us in Holy Eucharist at our Christmas Eve service at 5pm. Archdeacon Bette Kauffman will be assisting Father Riley for the Christmas Eve service! Please join us and invite others
…Mrs. Jane Barnett will lead us in Morning Prayer Sundays at 10am Dec 30 and Jan 6. Father Riley will return to lead us in Holy Eucharist Sundays Jan 13, 20; 27th. Our annual congregational meeting will follow our service on Jan 20th.
ADVENT IV - C - 18 LUKE 1. 39-55
The fourth week of Advent the
scene shifts from one of the Jordan River where John Baptist is preaching
repentance and baptizing as a means of preparing God’s people for the coming of
the Messiah, to a small village in the Judean hill country where the Blessed
Virgin Mary makes a visit to her cousin Elizabeth who, in her old age is
pregnant with John Baptist.
Yes, today the liturgical
clock runs backwards. The little season of Advent tends to do just that. We
began four weeks ago, you may recall with Jesus as Messiah prophesying about
the end of time and our need to be prepared for the judgment of God that will
accompany it.
Then, for the past two weeks,
we have been introduced to John Baptist as the forerunner of Christ. First, the
man, echoing Isaiah’s prophetic call to make straight a pathway for God and
then his message of repentance as a means of doing so.
Today the focus is on Mary,
the one chosen by God to be the mother of his Son, Jesus, and Mary’s response
to Elizabeth
Outwardly, there was nothing
to commend her to God. As any of us would be, she was afraid when the angel
suddenly appeared to her and announced that she would bear the Christ child.
She did not hide her inability to understand how it could be. However, once the
angel explained to her that the Holy Spirit of God would overshadow her, she
willingly gave her consent.
Mary was not divine but
purely human even though what was to happen to her was nothing less than a
divine action. She humbled herself before the angel who addressed her as
blessed in her response to the his announcement. And again, as she received
veneration from her cousin Elizabeth, who like Gabriel, called her blessed in
acknowledging her as the mother of her Lord.
Mary’s humility is evident in her song. It
describes how she feels about herself and about God who has chosen her to be
the vessel of His grace. Her response is
called the Magnificat from the first word of the song in Latin.
It is one of the oldest hymns
in the church. It is one of the most famous songs in Christianity. It has been
whispered in monasteries, chanted in cathedrals, recited in small remote
churches by evening candlelight, and set to music with trumpets and kettledrums
by Johann Sebastian Bach.
It is the gospel before the
gospel, a song of triumph 30 weeks before Bethlehem ,
30 years before Calvary and Easter. And it is
all because of Jesus who has only just been conceived, not yet born, but who
has made Elizabeth
It is a song that comes from
the heart of Mary. Her response reveals why God knew when he chose her she
would say “yes.” In it, Mary ascribes the miracle of the incarnation to God,
and not to herself, showing both deep humility and the knowledge that God is
the source of all grace.
Almost every word is a
biblical quotation such as Mary would have known from childhood. Much of it
echoes the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2, the song which celebrated the birth of
Samuel and all that God was going to do through him. Now these two
mothers-to-be celebrate together what God is going to do through their sons
John and Jesus.
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth Elizabeth Elizabeth
Underneath all of it is a
celebration of God. God has taken the initiative. God is the ultimate reason to
celebrate. Through the Incarnation, God reigns over all. Mary, then, holds a
special place in the life of the Church.
She is not worshipped, as
some might protest, rather, she is venerated because of her role in the divine
drama and of her willingness to participate in it. She believed what God told
her would come true as announced through the mouth of his angelic messenger.
Her visit to Elizabeth
In her “Yes” to God, Mary
remains an example of faithfulness, trust, and acceptance to all who call
themselves Christians.
What Mary has done is similar
to what the letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus himself has done. He has
come into the world to do God’s will. The true prayer offered by Christians is
the constant striving to respond to God’s will. Mary’s offering of self to the
will of God is what makes her blessed. It is what a human being is supposed to
be.
Just as Mary’s visit fills Elizabeth
It is that offering of
self-sacrificing love that we celebrate in every Holy Eucharist. Our joy is
only as real, however, as we make our self-offering to God in our daily living,
for that is our response to the will of God for us to be blessed, to be true
human beings.
The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
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