Today is the 4th Sunday of Advent – Stockings are hung by the chimney with care. It’s only two days until the Boxing Day sales. But let’s not rush past today – the 4th Sunday of Advent. The focus on this Sunday is Love. St. Francis advises that love lightens all difficulties and sweetens all bitterness. Jesus speaks to us in John’s Gospel: ‘I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another”.
It’s really crazy, isn’t it? Here we are listening to the same story, again. Who doesn’t know how it is going to come out? The plot doesn’t change from year to year. Every shepherd is in place; the star is shining on cue. No matter how predictable, we keep listening. We lean forward with anticipation, for somehow, despite the familiar details, we believe that this story is about us. What if the angel’s message to Mary (the Lord is with you) is God’s message to us?
According to Luke, this is what Gabriel told Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”
Those are the elements of the story that we know. But somewhere, along the way, we have to think about what we don’t know. And what we don’t know is what happened after the angel left the room.
You know how it is… someone asks you a tough question, or you’re faced with a difficult situation. Later, you slap yourself on the forehead and say, “I wish I’d said this…” You never think of the right – or clever – response at the time. It only comes later. “I wish I’d said that…”
Was that the way it was with Mary? “Why didn’t I ask Gabriel this while I had the chance?” “Will Joseph stick around? Will my parents still love me? Will my friends stand by me or will I get dragged into town and stoned? Will the pregnancy go all right? Will the labor be hard? Will there be someone there to help me when my time comes? Will I know what to do? You say the child will be king of Israel, but what about me? Will I survive his birth? What about me?”
All the angels in heaven couldn’t possibly prepare Mary for what she would be experiencing. That’s just not the way it works. You’ve got to go through it before you know what it’s like. The only way you really can understand it is in hindsight.
It is hard for most of us today, who take our possible salvation in Christ for granted to appreciate the importance of this revelation that defined where the Jewish religion evolved into the Christian religion. Yet, it is the revelation of this most important mystery of God that we celebrate at Christmas: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
If we want to find ourselves in this ancient but life-giving tale, we need to look at the one who received this word of assurance: Mary – who has been called, ‘the figure that is raised above all the figures of Advent’. In John, we may see our need to prepare the way of the Lord, but in Mary we see the even greater need to prepare Him room. In her, we see the response of love.
So, we have heard this story again, this time through the eyes of a woman of faith and unconditional love. Still there are questions, intellectual doubts that block our belief. Can we be like Mary who asked questions but did not wait until every doubt was answered before she risked herself in believing this fantastic story?
The times that I have shied away from trusting God for my future or from believing that God’s Will was superior to my own plans and schemes, were not times of intellectual doubt, but fear. I was afraid that believing God might mean losing something, giving up my own comfort, or security or familiar lifestyle.
Love is not dwelling on what we do not understand, but being faithful to the light we are given. Love is not an act; it is a process. It is committing all we know of ourselves to all we know of God in Jesus Christ. Both will grow. As we know more of whom we are, there will be more to invest in a God who has come to us, and said, “Fear not!” Mary stands out as the greatest example of love, for she not only prepared the way of the Lord, she provided Him room!
–Deacon Terry Murphy