Year B, Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 24, 2023
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, Canticle 15, Romans 16:25-27, Luke 1:26-38
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“Embracing the Faith of Mary”
The Very Rev. Kathleen Murray, Rector
Historic Beckford Parish, Mount Jackson & Woodstock
The Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B
December 24, 2023
There’s a temptation every seven years when the Fourth Sunday of Advent falls on the same day as Christmas Eve. It’s ever-growing in some quarters to skip a Sunday morning service. I understand – we all have much to do, and some will attend three (or even four) services over the next few days. I understand why some churches need to do it – I’m grateful we don’t have to.
First, I must thank everyone who made the preparations for this Sunday and tonight’s Christmas Eve services possible—both our sanctuaries look glorious. As you know, it’s generally in our tradition not to decorate for Christmas until after Advent 4. I may be a traditionalist, but I’m not a Puritan. That tradition must be flexed a bit to keep us sane these days.
But not having an Advent 4 service isn’t possible for me. Advent practices date back to at least the 4th century, a period of preparation and anticipation leading up to Christmas. I can’t forgo sixteen hundred years of tradition. And then, especially in this liturgical year, Year B, the Gospel lesson is glorious and brings us to the edge of Christmas. There’s a significant distinction between the readings of the fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve. Today, we hear the Annunciation, emphasizing divine love and human response, while Christmas Eve shifts to the Nativity, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.
“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”[1]
Can you only imagine Mary’s distress and fear when she heard this from a stranger, “Greetings favored one, the Lord is with you.[2] She was “greatly distressed at his words and wondered what sort of greeting this might be,”[3] as one translation puts it.
In today’s vernacular, it might sound more like, “Hey, Mary, you’re really special, and guess what? You’re going to have this baby named Jesus. He’s going to be a big deal!” Mary’s like, “Wait, how’s that going to happen?” Gabriel explains that it’s all part of a divine plan and not to worry. Mary’s response? “All right, I’m in. Let’s do this.”
It’s also significant that Mary will visit her kinswoman, Elizabeth. We don’t hear that part of the story (about the visit) today, but it holds religious, symbolic, and familial importance. Mary is getting out of Nazareth because she is afraid. She will stay with her cousin, where she will be safe.
But there were two miraculous pregnancies: Mary with Jesus and Elizabeth with John the Baptist. This encounter highlights both children’s unique roles in our salvation history. Elizabeth’s recognition of Mary’s blessed state and the unborn John’s response (leaping in the womb) to Mary’s presence further affirm the divine nature of Mary’s pregnancy.
This morning is all about Mary.
Mary pondered what the angel had told her, and then Mary agreed. She said, “Yes.” “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to according to your word.”[4]
I wonder what the world would be like if more people responded to God’s interruption in their lives as Mary did. Because Mary models the kind of reaction that we can all hope to have to an appearance, really more like a disturbance from God in our lives.
Because Mary knows her God, and only a few verses later, she will testify to the God she’s always known – the God who shows mercy for those who fear God, who scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty; who remembers Abraham and all his descendants, which now include her, forever. And now, more than ever, Mary knows who her God is. She knows what her God has done — for her, her cousin Elizabeth, the outcast, the overlooked, those discarded, disenfranchised, dismissed.
On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, Mary reminds us of what it looks and sounds like when God shows up in your life — unannounced, unexpected, and unplanned. And this is an important reminder as this season of the church year draws to a close.
While Advent brings us toward the birth of Jesus, as I’ve said before, we know the outcome. We know that Jesus is born and believe that he will come again. God entering humanity, as God did so long ago, will once again be a promise fulfilled.
When God breaks into our world and lives, can our response be Mary’s – who says, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord.”
Think about these words.
“Here I am, the servant of the Lord” is Mary’s response.
Is it also our response?
Is “Here I am, the servant of the Lord” our response when God calls us to stand up for the vulnerable, poor, oppressed, and needy?
Is “Here I am, the servant of the Lord” our response when God calls us to seek and serve Christ in all people as we are called to by our baptismal covenant?
Is “Here I am, the servant of the Lord” our response when God asks us to care for God’s creation and environment?
Mary was an extraordinary young woman who embodied extraordinary courage. The gospel tells us that Mary said, “Let it be to me according to your will.
A simple, or perhaps not so simple, yes to God.
Mary had a choice. So, do we.
Will we make Mary’s choice?
We may be fearful, and we may ponder what lies ahead. But I trust we know that God will not abandon us. We can live in hope because God has included us in his salvation.
Today is the last Sunday of Advent. Tonight, this sanctuary will be transformed, perhaps not physically, because that’s already been done, but it will be transformed spiritually, and we will celebrate the feast of the Incarnation. But before we sing O Come All Ye Faithful, Silent Night, and Joy to the World tonight, let’s remember the faith of Mary and Elizabeth. Amen.
[1] Luke 1:28
[2] Ibid.
[3] Luke 1:29
[4] Luke 1:38