4 Advent, 2024-C: Our turn as Godbearers

Lectionary:“Miracle”  by Eric Lane Barns (see the service bulletin, p 5), Canticle 15 (the Magnificat), and Luke 1:39-45 

En el nombre del Dios: único, santo, y vivo. Amen. 

In the name of the one, holy, and living God. Amen.

Our readings today tell one of the most powerful, intimate, and feminine in all of Scripture. It’s the story of two women chosen by God to be partners with God as God ushers in Their plan of salvation.

Elizabeth and Mary are kin of some sort, maybe blood, maybe just dear friends. Elizabeth is an old woman. Mary is a young teenager. Both are miraculously pregnant.

Upon learning she is pregnant, Mary goes “with haste” to visit Elizabeth. It makes sense that Mary, as young as she is, would need the help and guidance of an older woman in this moment. She also may have needed to get away from those in her village who wanted to stone her for her infidelity.

When Mary comes near, the baby within Elizabeth moves and Elizabeth experiences it as a joyful moment. Only a woman who has shared her body with a baby can know how this feels, but there’s more to this than sharing pregnancy experiences because the baby within Mary is God Incarnate - and that changes everything.

God, who is Love, is preparing to be present on earth in a way that has never happened before, taking on flesh and fulfilling God’s plan of salvation as Emmanuel (God with us), and that changes everything.

It changes Elizabeth’s shame into joy. It changes Mary’s seeming infidelity into the ultimate example of faith for all time, but it also changes Mary from a child into a radical, powerful prophet and priest (yes, priest). Mary was the first sacramental priest of the Christian universe because as the God-bearer, Mary literally gave the body of Christ to the world.

Medieval priest and mystic Meister Eckhart once said that we are all called to be God-bearers. We are all called to grow Christ within us - in our bodies, our souls, and our lives – and give him to the world. This is the ministry of all the baptized, not just the ordained. We are, after all the priesthood of all believers.

Mary’s Magnificat issued forth from her when she finally spoke about what was happening. It was her prophetic proclamation of her theology, grounded in her tradition. Let’s make a couple of connections: 

• that God is merciful, strong, and protective (Ps 103) 
• that God brings down the mighty from their places of power and lifts up the lowly (Isa 40)
• that God feeds those who hunger (Ps 23) and sends the self-satisfied away empty (Deut 8:14)
• that God helps God’s people (Ps 121, Isa 41)
• that God keeps God’s promises which are handed down through the prophets (Isa 23, Jer 49)

Think about it, this is the woman who raised Jesus, and this is the theology he learned from her and from his Jewish tradition. If we are God-bearers in our time, then isn’t this our manifesto too?

I give thanks for this prayer as we confront the discomfort of our current cultural narrative. As uncomfortable as it may be, I’m thankful that racism, sexism, violence, selfish hoarding and exploitation of resources, and a blatant lack of compassion for the suffering are being raised up into our awareness in undeniable ways right now. It’s uncomfortable because it causes us to confront our self-satisfied opinions about who we are as a nation and a people of God, and sends us away feeling empty.

But it is in that emptiness that our faith assures us that by God’s great power, bountiful grace, and promised mercy, everyone and everything that is out of step with God’s will, is already being reconciled; that justice and peace are already being restored in our hearts, in our relationships, and in our world.

It’s our turn now to be faithful, radical, and prophetic. Consider the question asked in the Anthem, “Miracle” we heard earlier: 

“To a land where profit takes the place of Spirit, To a land where even children carry guns, To a land where there’s no memory of a time before the violence; Tell me: how could such a Miracle come?” 

The answer is: this miracle comes when God comes among us as one of us. God, who is Love, is about to be born again only now, we are the God-bearers, called to grow Christ within us - in our bodies, our souls, and our lives – and give him to the world.

Let us pray… Most merciful and powerful God, we welcome you and the love you are birthing in our world. Deliver us from all our current barriers to your Love. Strengthen us to be like Mary and grow Christ within us, that we might give him to the world in an eternal holy communion. Amen.