Father Gary’ Sermon

Inspired from Luke 1:39-56

Proclaimed on December 21, 2003

As Christmas draws nearer and this season of Advent comes to a close, many of us find our preparations coming to a conclusion. Christmas cards have been sent out, presents have been purchased and wrapped, and many of our homes have been decorated. One of the decorations that many of us have is a nativity scene. Mark Link, in his book entitled Experiencing Jesus: His Story, relates an episode regarding one nativity set which some friends of his had purchased in the Holy Land. It was a striking set, made of beautifully carved olive wood that they had purchased in Bethlehem. All of the figures were there--Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the shepherds, and an assortment of manger animals. When these friends arrived at the Tel Aviv airport for their return to the United States, they discovered security to be extremely tight, as terrorist activity was unusually high. The customs officials carefully checked all of their suitcases, but took particular interest in the nativity figures, examining each of them carefully, handling them, letting their security dogs sniff them, and then running them through an x-ray machine. Almost apologetically, at the end of the process, the officer doing the examination said to these tourists, “We can’t take any chances; we can’t be too careful. We have to make certain that there is nothing explosive here.” The great irony according to Mark Link, however, was that these cautious customs officials were handling the most explosive force in the world--and they allowed it on the plane anyway.

“Explosive!?” you might ask. Yes, just exactly that. One of the characters in the nativity scene, the Virgin Mary, knew just how explosive she was as indicated by her words in our Gospel reading for today. At a time in her life when you would think that she was using Clearasil in the morning and talking on the phone most of the evening, or hanging out at the mall with friends, falling in and out of love with regularity, and anxiously awaiting the day when she would receive her driver’s license; a girl who still made money baby-sitting for the kids next door; here was a young teenage girl who instead is rushing away from her home for a surprise visit with a much older relative. She is pregnant! Worse than that she is unmarried. Now while in some ways this scene may not seem too far fetched within our culture as it is today, what is unusual is that the young girl’s relative views her pregnancy not as a scandal, but as a blessing--a blessing the young teenage girl need not explain for she knows that this pregnancy is most special. How does this relative know? She too is with child, but she is married. Indeed, she has been married a long time and is now an old woman. She has never had any children and is now beyond the age for bearing any. Yet, she now bears a child of her own. The child she carries will become John the Baptizer. This child within her somehow announces that they are in the presence of the Lord. Mary, who has fled to her relative perhaps out of fear, finds instead a safe refuge. Here she does not have to explain her pregnancy, she does not have to feel any social shame; here she is with another who has experienced the unusual workings of Almighty God. To this one Mary blurts out a song of praise--praise for the explosive power that is now within her.

This is a most unusual story. Indeed, for many of us today it is simply unbelievable. Perhaps this is because we worship a God that is so ordinary that we cannot fathom the extraordinary. What is the extraordinary? That God took this most ordinary of teenagers and requested of her the extraordinary, and she said, “Yes, Lord.” Did God ask her to do anything immoral? Did God ask her to do anything wrong? The answer to both of these questions is a simple “no.” God simply asked her to do the extraordinary, and because it was extraordinary, she would have to bear social scandal and possible death. Here was a teenage girl with all the hopes and dreams of a teenager, being asked to risk it all for God. This truly ordinary little girl simply said “Yes, Lord,” and became truly extraordinary. As the revered St. Augustine said, “The lowliness of Mary was made the heavenly ladder by which God descended upon earth.” The blessedness of Mary is only in part the fact that she bore the Godchild. Her true blessedness, however, was in her obedience, her willingness to accept Jesus into her life.

Today, on this the fourth Sunday of Advent, we are called upon to think about these things. We who are truly ordinary people are being called upon to consider extraordinary things. We the ordinary are asked to pray for the coming Kingdom of God, and to help in reordering our society. As stated by Abbie Jane Wells, “The busyness of ‘preparing the nursery’ for Mary and Joseph was no ‘hanging the greens, the wreaths, and the poinsettias.’ It was the mucking out of a cruddy stable so it would be as clean as possible for the birthing--and I imagine that would require some shoveling of manure out of the way.”

This too is our task. To do whatever is necessary to care for the Christ within our own lives. We who are ordinary are no different than Mary who was very ordinary. We too are being asked, asked to do the extraordinary, to accept Jesus Christ into our lives. What is so explosive about this? That in our obedience, much like the obedience of Mary, God will totally turn our world upside down and we too will be called “Blessed.”

It seems strange to think of a nativity set as possibly being explosive. The figures seem so simple, so serene. Yet, within them we have an explosive--an explosive that has literally shaken the world. This same explosive is available to each of us--we who are so ordinary. The explosive is not dynamite. No, the explosive is far greater than that. Yes, even greater than the atom. The explosive we bear in our ordinary lives, is the unleashing of the extraordinary by our simple obedience--obedience to accept Jesus into our humble beings.