Scripture: Zephaniah 3:14-20 & Luke 1: 39-56
Given on The Fourth Sunday in Advent, 2018
Over the past few years, I have become increasingly fascinated by the study of the heavenly that are splayed across the night sky. If I had to pinpoint the time that this started for me, it would almost certainly be the first time I looked up into the African night sky from a little village in Malawi and saw the perfectly formed shape of the Southern Cross standing out in a scape in which you could see the entirety of every constellation known to humankind. From that night, I have found myself looking up into the firmament more times than I can count and being amazed by the immenseness of it all. So it was that a couple of weeks ago, I read that there was a comet that had entered the viewable range of the planet and, like I said, being something of a space nerd these days, rushed out to see it. And with space app in hand to map out the luminous darkness above me, I found Christmas Comet 46P. I know, that is a really adventurous name. But, seeing it and wanting to share that experience with my sons, I called the older two out to see me and Jameson, also using the app, found it bursting through the night as it made its slow trip across the nightscape. Now, Seamus was a little more challenging. He’s not really old enough to say, look just to the west of Orion’s belt. This seems like payback for all those times my dad tried to show me a bird in a tree or a rabbit in the tall grass, or a deer 200 yards away in a dense forest. But, there was something magical about that moment. The stretching across of generations of McLeod, the bite of the crisp air as we stood there looking up into the vast darkness, the little sparks of light all around us. It was if, in that moment, we were all staring directly into the face of God. And collectively, each in our own way, we declared that our souls magnify the Lord.
We have all, I would presume, experienced those moments in which the liminal space between the physical world and the spiritual realm becomes razor thin and it is as if you can see the movement of the spirit passing before your eyes—those times when it felt like you could reach out directly in front of you and touch the face of God. Perhaps it was standing high atop a sprawling mountain vista as you cast your vision out on the world beneath you and for a split second you believed, you knew, that God was good. Deep inside you, the mystical declaration arises, My soul magnifies the Lord. Maybe it was standing on the coastline of the ocean, grains of sand moving between your toes, the roar of the ocean filling your ears, your mind, the power of the waves crashing into land rumbling your whole body until you pulsed with the back and forth of the water. And again your spirit erupts, My soul magnifies the Lord. Possibly it was a time in which you looked out on a stand of trees sitting in the middle of a field as a rare snowfall blankets the limbs and makes the trees appear to possess and age and wisdom that can only arise when one has received their share of gray hairs throughout life. My soul magnifies the Lord. Of course there are also the times in which you have reached the end of a harrowing journey, a terrifying period in your life, in which you faced your own mortality, the mortality of someone you love, a time when you get down on your knees and kissing the ground under you and give thanks that it was God’s spirit dwelling in you and in creation that has brought you to this moment and you proclaim with one voice, one spirit, My soul magnifies the Lord. There are those moments in all our lives, both good and bad, both trying and reassuring, that leave each of us possessing a firmer awareness, a deeper faith in the mystery, in the movement of God within the world. And for all those examples, those times that are crystal clear in our minds in which the beauty of the earth, the goodness of the earth is on full display, it is ultimately the trying times that give us our faith. Faith that there is something greater than ourselves at work within the universe. It is the trying times that convince us to inch towards a deeper belief in the spirit, a more profound acceptance that the trying times are simply part of the larger experience of creation. To live, is to experience trying times. To love is to make yourself vulnerable to those moments of pain that leave an indelible mark on our souls, to fully engage in active participation within the world is to know that not everything that happens is going to be pleasant and yet, we are called to remain faithful to the ultimate goodness of God. To know and believe that we remain indelibly held in the power and love of God.
The Catholic priest and writer Henri Nouwen talks about a time when he went to the circus and became transfixed by the trapeze artists and their ability to courageously flip back and forth on the swings high up in the air. And as he tells it, following the performance, he went back and spoke to one of the performers and asked what was required of releasing from the bar and catching the waiting hands of the one on the other swing and the performer explained to him that there was almost nothing that the one flying through the air had to do and in to try to catch the hands of the one on the opposite swing was counter productive. Rather, the trick was to hold your hands out and trust that your partner would catch you. In contemplating that later, Nouwen believed that faith in God was much the same. Rather than trying to force it, to force how God would be present, be sustainer of your life, faith is about letting go of everything and letting God catch you.
That is how I imagine it must have gone for Mary. Think about it for just a moment. For those of you who are parents, think back to that moment that you discovered that you were going to become parents. The whole of the world and space and time becomes completely bifurcated. On the one side of history is that period in which you did not have children and on the other side is when you learned that you were going to become parents. That your whole world was about to be altered. That you were about to become wholly responsible for this little creature. That he or she was going to look to you for their every need for a long time. It is all at once the most amazing and the most terrifying thing imaginable. My soul magnifies the Lord. So it is for Mary that she is going about her life, having what must have been a typical day, there was nothing to suggest otherwise, and all of a sudden this angel appears to her and tells her that her life is about to irrevocably altered. That everything she thought she knew about reality was about to be shattered. That God, God’s holy spirit was about to descend upon her womb and create life where before there had been no life and that that life was going to save her people from themselves. That he was going to deliver them. And you have to think that she had one of those moments when the space between the physical realm and the spiritual realm becomes razor thin, one of those moments when she could see the holy moving through the world and making all things new, and then it hits her. The responsibility, the struggle, the new age dawning across the spectrum of all of humankind. Both exhilarating and terrifying. Both elevating and humbling. And by the time she reaches Elizabeth’s house, you have to believe that this duel reality has set in for her, that God is both good and beautiful and that the presence of God has completely altered the trajectory of her life and so by the time you get to her hymn, traditionally known as the Magnificat, she has decided to let go of her life and let herself be the vessel for the Divine appearing in the world, appearing in the form of a baby, emerging from her womb. “My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my savior.” And look what follows. When God and God’s spirit are loosed on the world, there is no stone left on stone, no human envisioned power structure left untouched, no pride, no injustice, no ruler allowed to remain unchallenged. The hungry are fed, the lowly lifted up, the weak made strong. When God appears in creation, when God’s power flows unencumbered, everything is made right within the world. And in that moment, a baby is preparing to make manifest the power of God in human form. And Mary decides at that moment to let go of her life and trust and believe that it is God who will catch her. “For you have looked with favor upon your lowly servant, and from this day forward all generations will call me blessed.” The relief that passed over her when she finally uttered those words must have been unbelievable.
As we prepare for the coming once again of the beloved of God into the world, I don’t know precisely where each of you are individually. Maybe you are filled with the joy of the season, maybe somewhere just after Thanksgiving, you are able to flip a switch and become immersed in the excitement of all the preparations that are made to get ready for the coming of the messiah. Maybe, you are lost in the malaise of another holiday season in which the challenges of family, the loss of loved ones, the empty seats around the dinner table have rendered you utterly unable to celebrate the Christmas season with any degree of pleasure. Though, I imagine, most of us land somewhere in the middle of these poles. But as we have journeyed with Mary through this Advent, we have seen the degree to which the Christmas season is less about unbridled happiness, nor debilitating sadness. It is not about parties and gifts and egg nog and meals prepared just right. It is about one coming into the world who will set off a chain of events that shakes the Jewish foundation to its core. It is about the one who carried the child of God and the roller coaster of emotions that she experienced in the process of getting to Bethlehem to usher in the dawn of redeeming grace. It is about preparing ourselves to have our worlds disrupted in a manner that calls each of us to put down our nets, to leave our families, to be willing to let go of everything in our pursuit to follow the beloved of God to the far reaches of the world. Because look at what he will say later. “You lack one thing, sell all you have and come follow me.” “Drop what you are doing, and come follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” “Let the dead bury the dead.” “What does it benefit a person to gain the whole world, but lose their soul?” “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” This is not the coming of one who will let you continue on the same path on which he finds you. This is not one who is willing to let his followers stand idly by when they see injustice and violence perpetrated against “the least of these” in the world. This is not one who accepts half-measures in our devotion. This is one who demands that we join him in being the change we most desperately want to see in the world. Who requires that we seek justice, and do kindness, and walk humbly with him and with God. Who insists on nothing but our entire trust and that we let go of the rails and let him show us what he can do when allowed to roam unencumbered throughout the earth. But in order for him to do that. In order for us to follow him. We must be willing to be like Mary, to see both the beauty that arises in the natural order of the world, but also the beauty that emerges in the chaotic moments when even in the midst of every manner of struggle and strife in your life, that you are still able to cast your eyes over the world and declare, My soul magnifies the Lord.
This Christmas season, as we draw ever so close to the conclusion of this journey with our sister, Mary, be willing to let things go. Be willing to let go of any preconceived notion of where you will see the Christ child appearing in your midst. Because unless you have a trip to the Holy Lands planned of which I am unaware, none of us are likely to find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. He is coming into the world again, but he will be found in different forms, with different appearances, and in different situations and, likely, where you least expect him. And let us be willing to let go of any preconceived notion of what we are willing to do when following Christ. Because if you decide to follow Christ, if you truly decide to give your life over to him, then it will be an exhilarating ride and he will show you things that you have only dreamed about and he will take you places you can’t even imagine, but only if you are ready to follow him wherever he goes and never look back.
Take a look around you. Look at your neighbors, your friends, you spouses. Take a look at all your brothers and sisters in this place. Your brothers and sisters in Christ. They have been and will be your partners in this journey. They will carry you when you fall, celebrate when you achieve and love you with all they have. So let’s all make a commitment to one another, to push each other to follow Jesus wherever he takes this church and believe that as it was on that night of his birth so it is in this time and place and let us join with the angels in saying, Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace amongst all God’s peoples. Alleluia, amen.
Image: The Visitation by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1491)