Advent 4
2nd Samuel 7:1-11
Luke 1:46-55
(prayer)
“My soul magnifies the lord! And my spirit rejoices in God, my saviour”. Luke chapter one, verses forty-six and forty-seven. The beginning of the Magnificat: the Song of Mary. This is how the gospel of Luke reports on Mary’s reaction to the reality of a child within her womb.
The gospel tells us that Mary received an angelic message that she would bear a child and that the child would be ‘great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’
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It looks like Mary is saying what Patti said when she and I looked a similar stick in March of 2002: “Oh God...”
This Is really happening.
Now, everything will be different.
I’m not married yet.
People won’t understand.
My family won’t understand.
Joseph won’t understand.
I need to go visit Elizabeth.
And that’s what the gospel of Luke says Mary does. Mary has an elderly relative, Elizabeth: the wife of a temple priest (Zechariah) Elizabeth was said to be barren, but was now six months pregnant with her first child. Would she understand what Mary was going through?
Well, the gospel tells us that Elizabeth was exactly what Mary needed. When she arrived, she was greeted with warmth and welcome. She was not treated as the unwed mother embarrassment to the family.
Elizabeth welcomed Mary with joy and excitement for the reality of their lives.
It is out of that environment that Mary sings her song: “My soul magnifies the lord! And my spirit rejoices in God, my saviour” and that Elizabeth proclaims I am filled with the Holy Spirit. These two women both feel that they increased in their experience of God as a direct result of their un-expected, ‘expecting’ situations.
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Today, I am inviting us to delve into Mary’s heart and soul as she came to terms with her role in the Christmas story. In less than a week, we will (likely) be singing
All is calm; all is bright,
round yon virgin mother and child
Although, I don’t intend it to be the main topic of this sermon, I want to spend a little time speaking about Mary, the virgin.
The central biblical reference that sends us down this path is Isaiah 7:14 -- Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: the maiden is with child and she will bear a son, and will call his name Immanuel.
About 200 years before Mary lived, the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek. When the translators worked on Isaiah 7:14, they translated עַלְמָה, ’almah, which means maiden or young woman with παρθένος, parthenos, which means ‘virgin’. Hebrew does have a word that more clearly identifies a virgin, בְּתוּלָה, betulah. But ’almah (not betulah) is the word in Isaiah 7:14. So the Hebrew text of Isaiah says that the sign is that “a young woman is pregnant”, but the Greek version available to (and quoted by) the Greek-speaking authors of the gospels assumes that the sign is that “a virgin is pregnant”.
The authors of Matthew and Luke (the only gospels to attempt to tell stories of Jesus’ birth), clearly want their narratives to be consistent with the Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14 – and so Mary is openly claimed to be a virgin.
Many modern theological thinkers question the historicity of that claim, just on the inconsistencies from the original Hebrew text.
Does it matter? Now I can’t be 100% sure that Franco Harris caught the immaculate reception and there is TV footage of it. What I am to make of the claim about Mary, written down some 45 years after the fact, with the author using a faulty translation?
For some questioning the virgin birth might be faith shattering. For me, I don’t need to be convinced that the actual biology of Jesus’ conception was supernatural to believe that Mary believed that her pregnancy was the will of God and that her child would be great, and would be called the Son of the Most High. He would reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there would be no end.
I don’t need Jesus’ conception to be miraculous for me to believe that “The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus, that God had anointed him to bring good news to the poor; to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
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I will say that there was a strong spiritualism that surrounded Jesus’ birth: a spiritualism that we see echoed in how the gospel writers record Mary’s reaction to being pregnant:
“My soul magnifies the lord!
And my spirit rejoices in God, my saviour”.
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Perhaps it was the combination of the warm welcome, and the rush of excitement and hormones that allowed Mary to find that thin place where she was able to see God most clearly – as if through a magnifying glass. In this mystical state, she sings that she feels very blessed, that God is with her and looking out for her as God has done throughout the ages. God lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things. Mary feels this to be true for her own experience of God, whom she calls “The Mighty One”.
Within Mary’s heart, within her soul, God was a reality. And that she was a home for God’s purposes to be fulfilled.
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Sometimes people think that faith is about accepting a set of beliefs and that those beliefs are pretty much set: come to believe what is handed to you.
I am increasing unconvinced that this true.
Faith is more complex, more fluid, more flexible. People have spiritual experiences all of the time without the pre-benefit of a prescribed dogma. This has been true throughout the ages. In fact, it is through the sharing of these experiences, in the finding of similarities and a desire to understand that people work together on what eventually might sound like a set of beliefs or dogma.
As it was for Elizabeth, I am coming to believe that faith is about being filled with the Spirit – being in-spirited, inspired.
In the 1st century of the New Testament, the dominant philosophy was that the mind and the spirit were separate; there was a dualistic teaching that did not see the head and the heart as being on the same plain. This also found function in seeing the spirit as above the physical; and it was used to justify seeing men above women. This philosophy can be found all throughout the gospels and the New Testament letters with only occasional attempts to bridge the gaps: more often our scriptural mentors tell us to forgo the physical for the spiritual; to focus on the ‘next world’ at the expense of this world.
As a 21st century person, my head and my heart are kin to each other – reason and feeling are in constant conversation about what is real for me. I refuse to see the world we live in as being devoid of spirit – I do not long for the destruction of the world to usher in an age of enlightenment. I’m expecting to see 2012 (sorry Mayans)
My mind is amazed at the complexity and harmony of what I experience of this planet and this universe. At the same time, my heart is moved by the thought that I am part of this. And that I have the ability to wonder about such things.
I don’t need God to prove a spiritual aspect to my existence. I do not need a sign. Jesus does not need to have been born of a virgin for me to think and feel that he was ‘of God’.
I need to have an open heart to allow for mystery, yet unexplained. And I need my mind to be satisfied by what makes sense given what I have come to know.
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As we share this old, old story of Immanuel – of God-With-Us – let us pledge to experience it all with fresh hearts, with vigilant minds.
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One thing that Advent and Christmas can magnify for us is that we are reminded that the basic nature of God...is Love. Love is the final candle that encircles our advent wreath.
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What is love?
It is common to see “love” from a purely emotional perspective. Love is a feeling. Love is of the heart.
But, I am suggesting that when it comes to a faith perspective on ‘love’ that it needs to be of both the heart and the head – it is both a feeling and a thought.
A spiritual message of a faith founded in the life and teachings of Jesus is that we are meant to wonder about
The reason for love – What is it? How does it affect us; and
The reason to love – What difference does it make to me...and to the world because of me.
For Mary, the ‘depth of her being’ felt the love of God becoming more present in her life and she expressed that in the way she spent time with Elizabeth.
And in her mind, she imagined the practical aspects of this love being lived out: the poor uplifted; the hungry fed, promises kept.
Love is of the heart and the head. It is a feeling and a thought...and that leads to action.
Love needs to be felt (emotionally) and love needs to touch lives for it to be known in its fullest reality. Love needs to be known beyond the superficial.
King David thought that he could show love and admiration for God by creating a symbol of wealth and power in which to worship God – to house their holy relic. But God’s desire was for the people to know peace and safety – to live prosperous lives in their homeland.
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Mary’s life was turned upside down when she became pregnant – but her soul was filled with the love of God and she knew that her child would show love to this world in a new and special way. She shunned the rumours and the loose talk about her character and instead felt blessed when she realized that she was truly welcomed for who she was right at that moment.
Love is meant to be felt and love is meant to touch.
This is easy for most people within their inner circle of family and close friends. But let’s remember that Jesus didn’t just talk about love and save it for his friends. He risked love by showing it in real and tangible ways to all whom he encountered.
May it be so with us. Each person we meet – each stranger we encounter is worthy of our compassion and care because, they – like us – are part of the household of God. The holy spark that enlivens our spirit, burns within everyone to some degree or another.
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I love the simple song by Jim and Jean Strathdee that invites us to let that spark of God within each of us be what we notice when we encounter someone – whether they be friend, enemy, family or stranger. I want to end this message time with the invitation to greet each other with the words and intent of this simple song.
“The Spirit In Me Greets The Spirit in You”
#89MV “Love is the Touch”
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