Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:26-38
Presented December 18th, 2005, by J.D. Kline
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
The season of Advent is a time of intriguing contrasts. In the church, we set aside the Advent season, the four weeks prior to Christmas, as a time of waiting and listening, a time of expectant hoping for the fulfillment of the ancient promise of a whole new way of life unfolding among us. It is a time of aching, a time of yearning for God’s realm of peace and compassion to make itself fully known in our hearts and lives. It is a time of anticipation, a time that demands our full attention. But in the culture that threatens to envelope us so completely that we lose sight of the unique perspective of faith, these weeks leading up to Christmas have become the very opposite. They are a time of frenzy rather than a time for quieting our hearts. For many, the weeks prior to Christmas are a time of one seemingly endless activity after another—a gift-buying, party-planning, card-sending, present-wrapping, cookie-baking, house-decorating whirlwind of hustle and bustle.
The problem, of course, with living in a whirlwind of activity is that we all too easily miss the power of the Christmas story. If we do not take some time to quiet our hearts and minds this Advent season, something critical is overlooked. I rather suspect this is what the New Testament scholar J.B. Phillips had in mind when asserting that “what we are in fact celebrating [this Advent and Christmas season] is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no amount of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to its quiet but explosive significance.”
And what is the quiet but explosive significance of the Christmas story, but the incredible message of Immanuel, God-with-us—of God so loving the creation that he enters fully into human life. As John puts it in his Gospel, “The Word became flesh and lived among us, . . . full of grace and truth” (1:14). It is a matter of God entering so deeply into the human experience that all of life stands at the brink of being transformed and made new.
God comes among us, but God comes in a way few would ever anticipate. In a world in which we have become accustomed to rulers imposing their will upon the people, frequently by military threat or other powers of coercion, God chooses to enter the world as an infant—vulnerable, exposed, defenseless, dependent upon others. This manner of revealing God’s love is so astounding, so unexpected, that Mary, greeted by the angel Gabriel and told that she would give birth to “the Son of the Most High,” can scarcely take it in. “How can this be?” questions Mary. Mary, of course, wonders how it is that she, a virgin, could be pregnant. But in truth, Mary’s question becomes our own. How can this be, that the God whom we sometimes label as all-powerful, as almighty, could choose such an incredible path of vulnerability?
Episcopal preacher Barbara Brown Taylor envisions the scene in heaven when God announces to the angels and archangels this plan to enter the created world in the form of an infant. In her portrayal, the company of heaven at first disagrees passionately with God’s plan, but in the face of God’s persistence, they begin to come around. Writes Brown Taylor,
Okay, there was a high risk, but that was part of what God wanted his creatures to know: that God was willing to risk everything to get close to them, in hopes that they might love God again. It was a daring plan, but once the angels saw that God was dead-set on it, they broke into applause—not the uproarious kind but the steady kind that goes on and on when you have witnessed something you know you will never see again.
Who but God would envision entering human life as a vulnerable infant, born to persons of seemingly little consequence, in an out-of-the-way corner of the world, an event little noticed by the powers that be? The prophet Micah describes Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus, as the center of “one of the little clans of Judah,” a place and a people of little notoriety. Yet it is in Bethlehem that God enters the world in human form, a vulnerable infant who becomes “the one of peace” (Micah 5: 2, 5a). The noted theologian Karl Barth speaks of the incarnation, of God taking human flesh, “as inconceivable but not absurd.”
Tony Hendra, who you may know as a writer of satire, a founding editor of National Lampoon, has written a book about his spiritual journey entitled Father Joe: The Man who Saved my Soul. The constant thread through the ups and downs, the struggles and uncertainties, the faithfulness and unfaithfulness of Tony Hendra’s life is his relationship with a Benedictine monk named Father Joe. Father Joe’s death was a devastating loss to Tony, and in the epilogue to his book Tony asserts, “The God-thing is inconceivable without a human body as a medium, something we can cling to, that has touched the inconceivable.” Words of testimony to the power of incarnation, not unlike the old story of a frightened child who, in the middle of the night, is awakened by a threatening dream. When assured by her parent that God is with her, the child responds, “But I need someone with skin on.”
Jesus comes to us with skin on, revealing the very nature of God, a God whose primary characteristic is a love so deep that it will not let us go. After a time of intense anguish, doubt and fear in his life, Tony reconnected with Father Joe, and in the course of their sharing asked Father Joe to define peace. “Peace is love,” asserts Father Joe, “and love peace. Peace is the certainty that we are never alone.” And the power of incarnation suggests that not only does Jesus embody God’s love and peace; even more, we who would seek to pattern our lives on Jesus are called to incarnate that same love and peace. We are to become Christ’s representatives, embodying Christ’s compassion and grace, Christ’s peace and self-giving love. The apostle Paul, speaking of those who experience new life in Christ, puts the challenge of incarnation this way:
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgive you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us . . . (Ephesians 4:31-5:2).
The great Indian leader and proponent of nonviolence, Mahatma Gandhi, was deeply drawn to the teachings and example of Jesus. I read some years ago that Gandhi included in his daily meditation an hour’s reflection upon the Beatitudes of Jesus, and he was convinced that if everyone in the world would live by the spirit of the Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5, there would be no more violence and war. The call to become poor in spirit and pure in heart, placing our trust in God, to live as peacemakers, to hunger and thirst for right relationship with God, to grieve over the world’s injustices while seeking to display mercy and compassion—to the extent that we embody these qualities, we proclaim the wondrous reality of God’s love.
But sadly, Gandhi, a victim of racism while living in South Africa and barred from entering a church, felt he could not fully embrace Christianity. Said Gandhi, “I can’t become a Christian because they preach love, but don’t practice it.” It’s a tragic indictment of much of the church, but things need not remain that way. Mother Teresa, so noted for her ministry about the poor and the dying in India, once asserted,
There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.
You and I are ordinary people, but we are recipients of God’s Spirit—a Spirit unleashed among us as we embrace Christ Jesus and the way of life Jesus embodies, a Spirit that may well empower us to do extraordinary things. Truth is, God demonstrates a vulnerability, not only in the initial coming as an infant in the Bethlehem manger, but God continues to demonstrate vulnerability by entrusting the ministry of God’s kingdom to fallible human beings like you and like me. The proclaiming of the coming of a light that shall not be overcome by the darkness—this proclaiming is an extraordinary task given to you and to me, and to all who yearn for a deeper walk with God, for a journey of compassion and peace and grace and self-giving love.
Wayne Muller, founder of Bread for the Journey, an organization dedicated to encouraging local efforts to serve the poor and the hungry, has a book entitled How, Then, Shall We Live? Muller writes of having the opportunity, back in the days when the system of racial apartheid was still operative in South Africa, of meeting Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Asked what keeps him going in his tireless work on behalf of his people, what enables him, as a spiritual leader, to maintain a solid voice for peace and justice, Tutu responds, “Two things sustain me. First, I begin each day with a period of meditation, prayer, and reflection. I cannot imagine starting a day without this time of quiet contemplation. And second,” Tutu added, “I am sustained by knowing that I am doing what is right.”
For some, that final statement, “I am sustained by knowing that I am doing what is right”—such a statement could betray a high level of arrogance. But for Tutu, it is a statement of humility, a confession of Tutu’s willingness to follow the path God sets before him. With Archbishop Tutu, we know that we are on the right path as we seek to incarnate the vulnerable, the self-giving, the all-embracing love of Jesus Christ. Mary, confronted by the angel Gabriel, with a task that would forever alter her life, responded with words of affirmation, words of courage, words of commitment and determination: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
In the remaining days of this Advent season, as we once again anticipate the wondrous promise of a vulnerable love and its quiet but explosive significance, may we join Mary in asserting, “I am the Lord’s person, ready to serve.” May it be so among us. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
Gracious God, we enter the final days of the Advent season. As we go in and out of shopping malls and holiday parties, remind us anew that it is not in the hustle and bustle of activity that Christ comes. Quiet our hearts, O God, long enough that we take note of Christ’s coming among the poor and the broken, in the very midst of human need and longing. Open our eyes, that we might see as you see, that we might turn from the hard-edged ways of the world to the tender and vulnerable ways of incarnation.
O Christ Child of promise, come anew to our broken world. Reshape our imaginations, that we might notice your coming among the quiet and the simple, among life’s most vulnerable, in the out-of-the-way corners of life. O Christ Child of promise, come anew with your message of peace and hope, your promise of a love that cannot be earned by our feeble efforts, but a love that comes to us as gracious gift.
Forgive us, holy God, when we become so preoccupied with tasks to accomplish that we pay little attention to the quiet places of our hearts and our lives, overlooking the reminder of the carol writer: How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. Forgive us our times of arrogance in which we act as if we have no need of what the Christ child promises. Forgive us, gracious God, and guide us anew to the One who shows us how to live aright.
Thanks be to you, O God, for the inexpressible gift of Jesus the Christ, in whose arms we now place all who struggle with illness and seek your healing mercies . . . .
Immanuel, God-with-us, we pray for your peace to descend upon all creation. We pray for the people of Iraq, and dare to ask for an end to the violence and warfare and unrest. We hold before you the four members of Christian Peacemakers Teams being held hostage, and for that captors as well, that there might be a melting of hearts, a reconciling of spirits, and a turning from violence. And God, we pray for ourselves, that the vision of your peaceable kingdom might become an even deeper reality in our hearts and lives. Through the Prince of Peace we pray. Amen.