ADVENT IV 2018

• Micah 5:2-5a •
• Luke 1:46b-55 or Psalm 80:1-7 •
• Hebrews 10:5-10 •



The Visitation -- Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1556)

• Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

Rather unusually, on this Sunday one of the lectionary readings can be repeated. ‘The Magnificat’ is a rapturous song of praise that Mary offers to God when she realizes she is to be the Mother of Jesus – ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord’. It can be used in place of the Psalm, and then heard for a second time as the centerpiece of the Gospel reading.

Mary has walked to a distant village to visit to her cousin Elizabeth. It is from Elizabeth that she receives final confirmation of how remarkable her position is: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’. Like the Magnificat itself, these words have also become a widely used and long established prayer in the worship of the Church. The Magnificat, which is unique to Luke’s Gospel, has been said and sung innumerably many times over many centuries. This is powerful testimony to its deep spiritual significance for Christian believers in every time and place.

Roman ruins at Helopolis

Oddly, though, sheer familiarity can actually deafen us to the truly mysterious story it reflects. God’s mighty work of redemption, the point and purpose of the whole created cosmos -- Luke's Gospel proclaims -- begins in a remote part of the Roman Empire with the unexpected pregnancy of a teenage girl from a tiny village. The Magnificat signals Mary’s acceptance of what might well bring her shame and degradation, and this village girl's acceptance  inaugurates a spiritual transformation of human kind.

Such an unlikely scenario makes Mary’s words -- ‘From now on all generations will call me blessed’ -- seem absurd. The world in which she lived was a man's world, dominated by one of the greatest, harshest, and most enduring empires in human history. And yet, she was right. The Roman Empire has vanished so completely that only a few archeological traces remain. In sharp contrast,  at Christmas billions of people, will give thanks for Mary’s role in their redemption. While Caesar and Herod are literally ancient history, in every part of the world, people can be found calling Mary  f ‘blessed’. What greater evidence could there be that God has indeed ‘brought down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly’?

ADVENT III 2018

'Even now, the ax is lying at the root of the trees'

• Zephaniah 3:14-20 •
• Isaiah 12:2-6 •
• Philippians 4:4-7 •
• Luke 3:7-18

In this week’s readings the Advent theme of judgment rises to a crescendo. In the Old Testament lesson, the prophet Zephaniah tells Israel to rejoice because God has ended the terrible catalogue of acts of judgment that have befallen his Chosen People. The defeat of their enemies is at hand because God Himself will come amongst them. A Canticle from Isaiah (in the place of the usual Psalm) repeats the theme and tells the inhabitants of Zion to ‘Cry aloud, ring out your joy, for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel’. The brief lesson from Philippians provides a New Testament echo – rejoice because ‘the Lord is near’.

The Gospel, however, has a rather different tone. This is John the Baptist at his sternest. No mention of rejoicing, just a dreadful warning. John addresses those same inhabitants of Zion, as ‘You brood of vipers’ – no better than snakes squirming across the sand to avoid the flames that will destroy them. No good saying, ‘But we are the Chosen People!’ This gives neither right nor privilege, because God could just as easily choose stones to be his servants. True repentance, John declares, will indeed make a difference, but only if it includes giving up all the little conventional sins that everyone expects householders, soldiers and tax collectors to commit.

The Mystical Nativity - Botticelli (1500)

Will they then see the Messiah, the mighty warrior whose coming Zephaniah and Isaiah herald? Could the ferocious John be Him? No, someone even more powerful is coming. This true Messiah will come amongst us in order to separate the wheat and burn the chaff ‘with unquenchable fire’.

Somewhat strangely, the passage ends by saying that John proclaimed ‘good news’ to the people. How could exhortations of such ferocity be good news?  Here we get the first inkling that true ‘salvation’ will be quite different to what the Israelites supposed would happen, and to the things that we in our time might long for.  The ‘warrior in your midst who gives victory’ will be born in a stable, not a palace, and die on a Cross. That revelation truly was, and is, a mystery, the mystery of the Incarnation that millions of Christians across the world are about to celebrate.

ADVENT II 2018

John the Baptist Hans Holbein

• Baruch 5:1-9 or Malachi 3:1-4 •
• Luke 1:68-79 •
• Philippians 1:3-11 •
• Luke 3:1-6

Advent II this year is one of those relatively rare Sundays when the Psalm is replaced by a Canticle – a Bible passage whose beauty and power makes it the equivalent of poetry. The three most famous and widely used canticles all come from Luke’s Gospel, and they occur in the first two chapters, just before and after the birth of Jesus. The Magnificat -- the song of the Virgin Mary as she realizes the significance of the burden that God has given her – is the most famous, but the Benedictus -- assigned for this Sunday -- is no less powerful.

     The context is dramatic. Zechariah is taking his turn as a priest in the temple when he is struck dumb by a powerful vision. It tells him that the son about to be born to him should have a name – John. This unusual choice of name marks him out from the family into which he will be born. When the child arrives, Zechariah’s regains his speech, and he breaks into this wonderful hymn of praise – a canticle that Christ Church uses at morning prayer every weekday.

John the Baptist -- Alexander Ivanov

Zechariah’s insight is that he is living at a time when the historic promises God has made to Israel are about to be fulfilled, and he sees that the child born to him in old age will have a key role in this fulfillment. The third of Luke’s canticles, however, –– the Nunc Dimittis, Simeon’s acclamation when Mary presents Jesus in the temple -- corrects a possible misunderstanding. Though Zechariah's hymn of praise predicts that "the dawn from on high will break upon us", it is not his son John, but Jesus, yet to be born, who will "give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death".

     Nevertheless, both the lesson from Malachi and the accompanying Gospel make it clear that Zechariah is right to think of his son as having a very special place in God's plan of salvation. John is Malachi's "messenger who will prepare the way". He truly is a "prophet of the Most High", and his appointed task is to proclaim, in his fiery way, that an essential first step is repentance. We cannot be rescued from "darkness and the shadow of death", in other words, unless first we recognize our need to be rescued, and deeply long for light instead.