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Advent series Part 1
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Well, welcome to yet another first in our COVID world, our first socially distanced advent.
Speaker 1:And if we haven't met IRL, my name is Jeremy. I'm part of the team here at Commons. Thank you for joining us and inviting us into your homes this way. It really does mean the world. As much as we miss a gathering, particularly at this time of year, we are strangely warmed by the opportunities to share this season of preparation together.
Speaker 1:Because that's what Advent is after all. It's the season of waiting, and that's what we're all doing, all of us, these days. We are waiting for this pandemic to pass. We are waiting for a vaccine to emerge. We are waiting to see perhaps family and friends in the ways that we were once used to.
Speaker 1:And that is hard, and it's going to be hard. And perhaps in some small way, as we share this season together, we can be near for each other even if we're not physically present. But we want you to know that as a team, are praying for you. We miss you. We love you.
Speaker 1:We are so grateful for all the ways you continue to journey with us as a community this season. And with that said, not everyone around us has that same support, and we understand that. It's part of what we're working to address with our advent campaign this year, but, also, please reach out to us if you need anything. We are all here, all of our staff team, for a phone call or a Zoom chat if you need it. Now even as we support each other this winter, we are also diving into our annual advent series this winter.
Speaker 1:This year, we have called this advent enough. And enough is an interesting word because when I say that right now, I can almost hear it in my mouth the way that I might say enough when my kids are more than enough for me to handle. Enough. No more. I beg of you mercy.
Speaker 1:Please, COVID parents. I know you feel me right now. But that's not really why we're talking about enough here because we're actually talking about the paradox of how the machinery of Christmas often makes us feel like we don't have enough, and yet the narrative of Christmas is all about the fact that we are enough, that God comes to us. God is not looking for something from us, but God comes to us because in God's grace and peace, God believes we have something to offer to the story. And so for the next four Sundays, as we approach Christmas together, as we wait together, we're going to rehearse the stories of Advent.
Speaker 1:The story of Mary who didn't have enough, Joseph who didn't know enough, the shepherds who were not respected enough, and the Magi who were not inside enough to properly understand the divine. And yet God involves, God includes, God welcomes each of these stories, each of our stories during Advent each year. And so in the midst of a Christmas season that might not feel like it's enough for any of us, and where we remain at a distance, where we are online instead of together in the room, where many of our hopes for the season have not come together in the way that we once imagined, We will trust that God is still enough to meet us, that we are still enough to be met by the divine, and that the waiting of Advent is still enough to prepare us to encounter divine grace this Christmas. So today is Mary, the unexpected mother of God. And as we do every year during Advent, we read the Magnificat.
Speaker 1:This is from Luke chapter one verses 46 to 45. And Mary said, my soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation.
Speaker 1:He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but he has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever just as he promised our ancestors.
Speaker 1:Let's pray. God of all grace and peace who comes to us this Advent season, inviting us to prepare room for you. God, in all of these ways that we are caught up in the hustle and the bustle, the machinery, and the busyness of Christmas. May we remember that there is something true and beautiful inside each of us, something you have placed there in us, That we are enough to be welcomed into your story, to be used for your kingdom, that we are enough for you to come and meet us this Christmas. And so in all of our busyness, in all of our lack, in all of the ways that this season isn't what we might have expected, we trust that you will come and meet us again this year.
Speaker 1:And so we prepare room for the Christ child in our homes, in our hearts, in our hopes this season. And we trust you will meet us here In the strong name of the one we await, we pray. Amen. Okay. Today, we are focused on Mary, and most of us probably have a basic understanding of her story.
Speaker 1:She is the unwed teenage girl to whom an angel brings tidings of great joy. You will be the mother of God. But after that, we kind of almost lose sight of Mary. Jesus grabs our attention, which is good and holy, and yet, think I if we fail to fully appreciate Mary, the person whom the divine chose for Jesus to look up to, I think, well, I think we miss out on a lot. Now, my family is getting ready for Christmas right now as yours is.
Speaker 1:We put up our Christmas tree this week. And while that certainly did help to get us in the mood, as is the case for many of us right now, this will be a year of mixed emotions. This is our first Christmas with our newest child, our daughter, Em, who we adopted at the start of this year. And we are so thankful for her and the way that she has bounced back from a surprising and difficult entry into this world. Her and her birth mother, they have been gifts to our family.
Speaker 1:And by the way, she is doing extremely well right now. She is the happiest baby I have ever met. It's astonishing, really. So thank you for your prayers. But it's also been almost a year, and none of our families, neither mine nor Rachel's, none of her grandparents have met her yet.
Speaker 1:So this will be a FaceTime Christmas for us and those like us with family across the country, and I am incredibly thankful for all of that technology and what it affords, but I would love to see my mom hold my daughter. Get that mix, that thankfulness and joy, that longing and wishing, all of that feels very present in Mary's story as we begin Advent this year. This profound trust that something good and true is on the way and yet knowing that it's not quite here yet. I mean, that's that's Christmas. That's Mary's Magnificat.
Speaker 1:And so, as I said, most of us probably have a basic understanding of Mary's story, but this is the time of year when we rehearse familiar stories. We pull out our family traditions, and we hang familiar decorations, so let's take a closer look at a story we may have heard before. And it's Luke that gives us the most full account of the first steps of this Christmas story. In chapter one verse 26, we read that in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary, and the angel went to her and said, greetings, you who are highly favored.
Speaker 1:The Lord is with you. And Mary was greatly troubled at these words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. And here's our first introduction to Mary and also perhaps our first inclination that Mary is somehow already ahead of the game.
Speaker 1:Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. But Mary was greatly troubled and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. And I mean, I just really like this moment because it seems to me that Mary is wise. There's this interesting thing here where Luke gives us every reason not to expect much from Mary in this story.
Speaker 1:God sent the angel to Nazareth in Galilee, and we actually talked about this last week. This is how you make fun of someone in the ancient world. Galilee is the blue collar rural Palestine. Nazareth is the capital of nowhere. And right from the start, as an ancient reader, you're asking, what?
Speaker 1:Nazareth? I mean, the angel probably had to ask directions just to find the place. But then after that, we read that once Gabriel gets there, he's supposed to search out an unmarried virgin, likely a very young girl, not exactly the kind of audience we expect for angels. Yet our first introduction to Mary is is very interesting. She is greatly troubled.
Speaker 1:The word is, which is literally perplexed by the greeting. But she's not afraid, at least not in the cower under her bed kind of way that a lot of people are when they meet angels in the bible. Instead, she is confused, which to me signals that perhaps she understands this moment intuitively. For comparison, when Isaiah meets an angel for the first time in chapter six of his book, his response is, oh, no. I will be destroyed for I am not pure enough to speak to God, and I live among people who are not pure enough to speak of him.
Speaker 1:That's sort of par for the course when it comes to angelic encounters in the Bible. But Mary, Mary doesn't hide, Mary doesn't run, Mary is simply perplexed by why an angel has come to her, which seems to me to suggest that perhaps she already knows something very surprising about God. That God is not someone for her to fear, that God is someone who arrives with purpose in mind. And that means that if God is here in front of her, well, then that is interesting. You see, I think Mary understands almost intuitively that the presence of the divine in our lives means that we have all of us purpose and mission ahead of us.
Speaker 1:She can't quite imagine what that means for her yet, but she knows it's something. Something. And I think this is worth paying attention to for a moment. Every time you notice the divine in your life, this is a reminder of your essential purpose in God's imagination for the world. And you may not know what that means yet.
Speaker 1:You may find yourself a little perplexed or even troubled by it. But when you notice the presence of God, this implicates you in the story of God. Justice. When you welcome divine mercy, you're now responsible for divine forgiveness. When you are enveloped in the love that forms the universe around you, you are in our power of how that story continues forward around you.
Speaker 1:And I I think I think Mary gets this. I think she just doesn't know how yet. And so the angel explains, well, you're going to have a baby, and you will raise that baby to change the world. And Mary says, well, that's unlikely. And the angel says, well, it's not the best things sometimes are.
Speaker 1:So Mary picks up her things, and she heads to a town in the hill country of Judea to move in with her pregnant cousin Elizabeth. And when she arrives, she recites a poem for her new family. And, again, this this is surprising. I mean, this poem has been celebrated for millennia now. It is a work of profound beauty in theological way.
Speaker 1:So profound, in fact, that many scholars over the years have assumed that it must have been a later contribution by some unnamed writer whose words were then placed into the mouth of Mary. But to me, that seems to fundamentally miss the point of the story. And the reason God chose this woman to raise the Christ is this beauty. This woman, this young girl from Nazareth, she is remarkable. Now understand that she would not have been able to study Torah the way her son would one day be invited into the temple as a young boy to study.
Speaker 1:As a girl, her formal education options were limited at the time, but certainly not her grasp. The Magnificat is broken into three sections, and it follows the formula of a psalm of praise. It starts with an opening. This is verses 46 to 49 here that introduces the writer and their god. This is followed by what we call the because clauses that list all of the reasons the writer praises their god.
Speaker 1:And finally, what we call the recapitulation. That's verse 55 here that restates, expands, and welcomes those who read the psalm into the praise of God. Not only that, but as she writes, she cites the poetry of her people. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. That's from Psalm one eighteen.
Speaker 1:He has brought down the rulers. That's Psalm 75. He has exalted the humble. Psalm one thirteen. He has filled the hungry, Psalm 34.
Speaker 1:He has helped his servant remembering to be merciful. That's Psalm 98. So this young woman, unmarried, from Nazareth Of The Galilee who intuitively understands and welcomes the presence of the divine. She can express herself in the forms of poetry that define Hebrew worship. She can recite and recall Torah that has shaped her life and brought her to this moment here.
Speaker 1:This woman is more than enough for the task at hand. And this is why God comes to her after all, isn't it? Mary is not random. Mary is not incidental. She's not merely a vessel for where God wants to go.
Speaker 1:Mary and everything already placed within her are an integral part of the divine plan. And there is this delicious irony to the fact that we have turned Christmas into a season where even the most well appointed among us still struggle to feel like we have done or ordered or bought enough. And yet the Christmas story repeats to us again and again, they're afraid that there is already more within you. There is more to you than those around you realize. As the writer of first John would pen some decades later reflecting on this same Christ to come, I am writing to you because you know the one who is from the beginning.
Speaker 1:I am writing to you because you have already overcome all evil. I am writing to you because you know God. I write to you because you are strong, and the Word of God lives in you, and you have already overcome so much. You see, we load ourselves up with these unreasonable expectations, particularly, I think, at this time of year, and then we're disappointed in ourselves when we can't meet all of those artificial markers. But here, in the background, in the story of Christmas, comes the messenger of God to say, you are capable of so much more than you can possibly imagine right now.
Speaker 1:If only you could begin to see yourself in the light of everything God has already placed inside of you instead of all the things you haven't yet acquired. And so God comes to Mary, the one that we are conditioned to look past, but Mary somehow Mary knows she's made for this. And, yes, perhaps she thinks it's strange that God has come to her, but she's not afraid. She is fierce. Because God has brought down rulers from their thrones and lifted up the humble.
Speaker 1:God has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. And God has done all of this for her by choosing her. And so through Mary's yes, may it be to me as you have said, God now says to all of us, have always been moving the story forward to hear. I've hinted and I've given glimpses. I've pushed and I've prepared humanity for this.
Speaker 1:With my hand, I have performed mighty deeds remembering always to be merciful. But now I am ready to be completely known by you. And so the truth behind the universe. The god who sat behind the stars in the sky of the ancient world, the same God who sits behind the known universe that is, as of today, 93,000,000,000 light years across. That God reveals God's self perfectly as the helpless zygote subject to the hormone shifts of a brilliant adolescent girl.
Speaker 1:And somehow, the most powerful, the most strong, the most self sufficient concept we can muster in our minds reveals itself as the most dependent, vulnerable creature anywhere in our lives. And this is not a mistake. It's not just a metaphor or an oversight. This is exactly who God is. The one who sees what is beautiful in and through each of us, the one who needs nothing more than everything we already have to offer back to God.
Speaker 1:And that right there is the fragile hope of Emmanuel, God with us, that you and I, we carry with us this season. That you're not God, and you were never expected to be. That you're not Mary, and you never needed to be. What you are is the unique creation of an incredible God who longs to transform some small corner of this world through you. Because just as Mary was, you are enough to make a difference in the world.
Speaker 1:You are, in your way, a God bearer in this world. Look. In the best of years, Advent is all about the waiting. And this year, perhaps that takes center stage in a way that we are unfamiliar with. Advent is also about the fact that the thing you long for most is on its way to you.
Speaker 1:It is coming for you. And even if it is still a ways off in the distance, somehow we see, but we still hope for what is on its way to us. Because good news cannot be stopped. And so together, we wait. Trusting that what God has placed within each of us is enough for God to do something remarkable with.
Speaker 1:And in the Magnificat of Mary, what we slowly realize is that there is something special inside everyone we meet. When all of this waiting, this slow discovery, all of the humanity in it, all of this smallness and hiddenness, all this hushed hope we experience in this season, none of it was meant to sneak God past us Because it was meant to reveal God to us in the places we least expect to find the divine. As Madeleine Lengal writes, this is the irrational season when love blooms bright and wild. Had Mary been filled with reason, there'd have been no room for a child. So may you keep room for the Christ child this season.
Speaker 1:In your waiting, in your celebration, in your home, in your heart. But make you make room for Christ knowing that even you are enough to carry God into the world this Christmas. Every kind word, with every small gesture of thanks, with every time you bring light to someone who needs it, especially in this season this year, And every time you trust that good is on the way toward you, you bring God into the world. Let's pray. God of all good gifts, who comes to us again and again, reminding us that we are enough, we have a role to play in your story, and you are willing to participate with us.
Speaker 1:May we welcome that gift. Your grace and forgiveness, your healing and repair. And may we then begin to live out of that story. Trusting that our place in your story is the place that we were meant for. And that everything you have placed within us, all of our longings, all of our hopes, all of the gifts we can bring to bear in the world, They were meant for moments like these.
Speaker 1:Help us to wait well. Help us to trust well. Help us to rest in the presence of the divine that is around us all the time. In the strong name of the one we await, we pray. Amen.