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| Leap for Joy (Luke 1:39-45) |
| Written by Pastor Fausel | |
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen. Grace, mercy and peace be to you … The Fourth Sunday of Advent. Christmas itself is less than a week away. Preparation is giving way to acute anticipation and all that goes with it … both in the sense of not being able to wait … and in the sense of “How can it be only 5 days away… there’s still so much to do!” But talk about anticipation … our brief passage from the Gospel of Luke gives us much to consider … Because in this passage… we first see Jesus. Jesus? But, Pastor, He’s not born yet! That’s true! In fact, our narrative for this morning begins … “In those days…” ”Those days” referring to the time of the departure of the angel from announcing Mary’s upcoming pregnancy by the Holy Spirit. Mary then goes into the hill country, we learn, to visit her relative Elizabeth who happens to be 6 months pregnant with John the Baptist. And there we hear Elizabeth, by the Power of the Holy Spirit greeting Mary as the “Mother of my Lord.” And then all kinds of things happen. Elizabeth speaks blessings on Mary… and Elizabeth’s unborn infant, John, leaps in her womb. In other words, even though we don’t actually see Jesus in this account … He is there! And Mary, Elizabeth and even John … are aware of Him! Jesus is there physically … even though He is not seen. Comparisons have been made to this unseen physical presence of Jesus in this account … to his presence today in His Church. Although we don’t see Him, He is here. Even Physically. Although that may be hard for us to fathom, it is true. He has promised where ever two or more are gathered in His name He is with them. And when we partake of the Sacrament, He has promised His physical presence as well … the bread and the wine do not represent Jesus’ body and blood … but we do rightly receive the physical body and blood of Jesus in, with, and under the elements of bread and the wine. Do we see, smell, taste or touch Him? … no. But He is present as He has so promised in His Word. St. Paul even warns us about receiving Christ’s body and blood in an unworthy manner lest we sin against them … something we could not do … if His true body and blood were not truly physically present. So the question we might ask is … when WE come into the Lord’s presence here in church, are we moved, like John the Baptist, to leap with Joy? Well, my daughter likes to refer to certain things as “Joy Suckers,” things that suck the joy out of your life, your heart, and your soul. If that’s what you’re experiencing, a Joy Sucker… this season especially … this season of the coming of the Lord … if the hype, the shopping, the preparations, the memories of seasons past are sucking the joy out of the coming of the Lord this year … well… what do you think you ought to do about it? Think about it … what’s keeping you from leaping with Joy? Is it something that’s bigger than the Lord Himself, the One who is coming? It may look that way … but nothing is truly greater than He. And that in and of itself is reason to leap for Joy! So then, why the downturned corners of the mouth? Finances? Illness? Stress? Disappointments? Failures? Remember Who is bigger than them all. So let me crawl out on a limb a bit on this. Perhaps maybe the reason for your lack of Joy is because the thing that’s really in short supply IS His presence in your life. We know where He is to be found. We know where to meet Him. We know how to be in His presence. But … do we go there? Are we the wise people who still seek Him? Or … are we following after other things that seem to promise Joy and fulfillment, only to find after we have sought them out that they leave us empty? … And in the meantime, they have been distracting us from the one thing needful?? Something perhaps to ponder as Jesus meets us … unseen … and yet, undeniably present, here in our midst. He loves you and wants to have an intimate loving relationship with you. Is there room for Him … in your Inn? Think that’s too tall an order? Hear again that blessing pronounced by Elizabeth upon Mary: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” How well does that blessing apply to you and me in the midst of this season? Are we believing, that is, trusting, what has been spoken to us from the Lord? Remember. At this time, Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, had been stuck mute, and so, he couldn’t speak. Why? Because he had doubted and sought proof from the Angel Gabriel that the miracle of the birth of a child to he and Elizabeth could happen in their old age. This was an Abraham/Sara kind of miracle. It meant God’s personal and miraculous intervention in the normal course of events of humanity … something not seen in Israel in over 450 years. One could argue that the appearance of an angel was a miracle in and of itself … and if that could happen, anything could happen. But, take whatever is sucking your joy out of your heart right now and imagine that all going away. Hard to imagine how God could actually pull that off? So it was for Zechariah. For Mary, though, she answered, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord… let it be to me according to your word.” The Word that the Angel Gabriel had brought to her from God. The same word the apostles of the Lord have handed down to us. The same word that Jesus affirmed would never pass away. So. What are we to do with all this …this morning? Well… It’s sort of interesting. In spite of the miracle that God had worked in Elizabeth’s life and the reason for Joy that she had in the Lord … when she sees Mary … Mary is all she talks about. “Blessed are you, Mary … blessed is the fruit of your womb … blessed are you who believed that the word of God would be fulfilled.” Why this focus? Because the focus is really on Jesus. Mary is the God bearer. Through her, God was taking on human flesh and blood and entering time-bound creation. This is … outside of the resurrection … perhaps the greatest miracle seen on earth… but one witnessed by very few. And this little passage we have from Luke this morning gives us that point to ponder. In the words of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” Why? Because Jesus came to offer His body into the death we deserve. Instead of eternal separation from God, we are now at peace and reconciled to Him in Jesus Christ. And to those people, people like you and me, God says of us… “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Now, are all the things we experience in this life what we would call “good?” No, that’s not God’s promise. But even the bad, even the things we suffer due to the malicious intent of others … will finally be worked by God to our eternal good. In other worlds, God asks for our trust, just as the words of God from the Angel asked for Mary’s trust. A trust, though, that comes not from us, not from our own human strength of character, but through us, through the Power of the Holy Spirit, whom God has put into our hearts. We might very well pray, then, as we go through life, “God give me more of the Holy Spirit!” And He does … here in today’s God Bearer … His Church. A place where He meets us, and fills us with His Spirit through His Holy Word and His holy Physical Presence in the Sacrament. He does so, not that we might call attention to the miracles He works in our lives … but to the miracle of WHO HE IS in our life. And in so doing… He makes us God-bearers to this world as well… In Him. Amen. |