Sermon for Sunday 20th December 2009

On Christmas Eve the chapel at King’s College, Cambridge will be holding its traditional Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. The pattern for the service is one many churches have taken up, including St Andrew’s - for our carol service which is at 6.30 this evening. The King’s service always opens with the carol Once in Royal David’s City, the first verse sung by a single boy chorister. To avoid putting him under too much stress, the chorister is not told he will be singing the solo ‘til just before the service is to begin. It is obviously a moment of great excitement for him. But also quite an anxious one, bearing in mind the service is broadcast live and listened to in millions of homes around the world.

The focus for our fourth and final Sunday of Advent is Mary. We have in our Advent journey traveled in time closer and closer, even past, the birth of Christ. We began with the Patriarchs, followed by the prophets, and last Sunday, John the Baptist. The scene is set for us the birth of the Christ child to be seen as the fulfillment of God’s purposes for his world. All the people we encountered during Advent were chosen by God. They responded to God’s call, including Mary.

But with the fourth Sunday and Mary we have a dramatic change of tone and shape of calling. Remember the belligerent, threatening tone of John – ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ was the opening verse of our Gospel last week. But this week is a huge contrast. Our clock is wound back from last week to the months before John was born, with Mary visiting his mother, Elizabeth. The passage is filled with gentleness and joy as Mary and Elizabeth, both pregnant, meet. Filled with the Holy Spirit, they respond with awe to the roles to which they have been called.

In the stories of Mary and Elizabeth we hear the question ‘why me?’ When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary she was understandably perplexed. He addressed her as God’s ‘favoured one’. And when Mary visited Elizabeth, Elizabeth proclaimed ‘And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?’ Why me?

The answer is given to us by Mary in the beautiful words of the Magnificat – her song of praise. But also a song of humility and acceptance we can all share in as she declares that God has ‘looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.’

One of my commentaries on this passage observes that ‘the great stories from the Bible involve specific people, like Elizabeth, John and Mary, being caught up in God’s drama, finding their own lives turned upside down, or perhaps the right way up, being gripped at the heart with God’s mysterious presence, feeling the warm breath of his love, discovering the sense of direction to which they have no choice but to be obedient.’

As another Christmas approaches it is easy for us to be an observer of the drama of Jesus birth. Many of us will be filled with joy as we hear again the wondrous story, and immerse ourselves in beautiful, words, music and worship. The lone nervous chorister at Kings is, like Mary, chosen for a special task. The rest of us stand by and listen.

But the story of Mary and Christmas is that all of us are favoured by God. Mary’s song is for all of us to sing, as if it were our own. Maybe like Elizabeth, something leaps within us at particular moments. For me, of all our Christmas acts of worship, so beautiful and varied, it is Midnight Mass where I sense most of all God’s tangible presence. And I am reminded of our participation in God’s story, both individually and as a church.

With all the beauty of the various aspects of Christmas it is easy for us to dwell most of all on the ‘feelgood’ nature of the season. It is about God’s amazing gift of his son to us. We are called to bow down and give thanks, and we are called to celebrate. These stories of Mary and Elizabeth do hold a sense of joy and excitement. But they also contain the drama of not knowing what they had become involved in. Of having the courage to walk so closely with God.

We know the story that is to follow, with both Mary and Elizabeth’s sons destined to die for their faithful response to God’s call. Fearful, devastating events were to follow. But the certainty with which Mary and Elizabeth accept their call shines out. They place their entire trust in God.

Each one of us is favoured by God. Mary, in declaring that God has looked with favour on her as a lowly servant, expressed her solidarity with the poor and inadequate. She likewise expresses her solidarity with us, as ordinary people who are lifted up through faith and obedience to God. She aligns herself with God’s vision for the world.

Would we dare to attempt to put into words as Mary did our relationship with God? To commit ourselves to live them out so wholeheartedly? Perhaps in the few remaining days before Christmas we should have in the back of our minds that sense of being visited by Mary. Of gaining strength of purpose from her. Because the mother of our Lord does come to us. And she invites us to recognise, as Elizabeth did, that she is the mother of our Lord, who is Emmanuel, God with us. And she has declared that she is in effect, one of us. She wants us to share in her story.

However small our part in God’s plan of salvation, we should know what that part is, or what it might be. The child leapt for joy in Elizabeth’s womb at Mary’s arrival. Our Christmas celebrations are our way of expressing joy that we are invited to share in God’s plan. Mary’s witness calls us to try like her to align ourselves with God’s will. Through her story she promises us that then our spirits will rejoice in God our Saviour.

© Robert Jenkins December 2009