Sunday, December 21, 2014 - Fourth Sunday in Advent - Promise made to her – and to us

To read the texts click on the texts: 2 Sam 7:1-5, 8b-12,14a, 16; Rom 16:25-27; Lk 1:26-38

Referring to her first year as a volunteer in a home for unwed mothers, a young woman said to me, “I was depressed. What kind of God would let young women and innocent children suffer so much? Finally it got through to me…God is not going to come down and show us his love like he did two thousand years ago. We have to let God’s love work through us. As Mary did, we have to say yes to what God wants us to do.”

On the last Sunday in the season of advent, the Church invites us through the readings to move away from testimony to fact. We read the story of how God intervened in human history through the faith and courage of one woman. Confronted by the message of the Angel Gabriel that she would be the mother of the Messiah, Mary could only wonder aloud: “But how can this come about?” Humanly speaking, it was impossible for her to bear a child, since she was a virgin. But the Angel responded: “The power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow”. A seemingly impossible situation is about to be made possible by the intervention of God. But for this to happen, the Almighty God had to count on the cooperation of a humble woman named Mary.

In the family of David in which Jesus was born not everyone was as virtuous as Mary, Jesus was born of a family in which some people frequently misused their positions of power and authority and others gained their rights by means of deception, God chose a family not unlike our own families. In other words, the Incarnation occurred within the real world, a broken world, a world that was very much in need of healing.

The mystery, of which Paul speaks in the second reading of today, is not only the fact of the Incarnation, but also the means whereby it came to be. God chooses the weak of the world to confound the strong. He chooses the humble to bring down the mighty from their thrones. The weak, sinful family of David came to be seen as an avenue of God’s goodness to others. Born of this family, Jesus became the ultimate agent of God’s blessing for all. This is the mystery now revealed: This messy world of ours, the real world of human history, is now “charged with the grandeur of God.”

What happens in the first reading of today takes place just after David had defeated the Philistines and united the tribes of Israel. Flush with enthusiasm he proposes to build a house for the Ark of the Covenant which was a kind of throne for God, also containing the tablets with God’s commandments from Sinai. Gold reverses this proposal questioning how a humble human can build a shelter for God. After all, it is God who has sheltered David throughout his perilous career as shepherd, military commander, and leader of an entire nation. Instead God proposes to dwell among David and his ancestors: “I shall appoint your heir, your own son to succeed you. . This announcement from God to David says that the Creator of the Universe, the Loving and Just God resides not in a special place but in people who believe. The presence of the Living God among people from Moses. To David, and now to us is described by Paul as a “mystery revealed”.

This is the central meaning of Christmas for us. Of course God is always with us. But the birth of Jesus represents a unique moment when this awesome gift becomes especially apparent. Our Gospel passage today reminds us of how the presence of God ‘breaks the chains that bind us’, lifts up the poor, and makes us wonder, ‘Could the world be about to change?’

Through the annunciation made to Mary we are reminded that Christ is not born amid pomp or fanfare, riches or glory. Christ was born in a dark moment of history when people had every reason to be afraid. And still it is the places in our lives where oppression, illness, and injury reside that we are told to look for God.

As strange as that sounds it is perfectly in keeping with the Christmas spirit. It is in our woundedness, our fear, our shame, our callousness towards the poor that God visits us and turns the world around, yes, turns the world upside down. This is why we are told, “Do not be afraid”. People of humility and faith, who live simple lives of justice and love like Mary, are favored by God, sheltered by the Holy Spirit, and fruitful. They will live forever. This is the promise that was made to David, to Mary, and now to us.