"Here Am I"

[Our readings were 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Canticle 15; Romans 16: 25-27; and Luke 1:26-38.]

Can you imagine how this all sounded to Mary?

She is a young woman of an obscure, but presumably respectable family. Her family has made a good marriage for her with a respectable carpenter which will put her in the tiny middle class of her country. She is probably expecting a quiet life, some children, a degree of security. While she plans to follow God’s will for her life, she assumes it’s the usual stuff—keep the Commandments, obey the Law, that sort of thing.

Then, here comes the angel Gabriel telling her that God has other plans for her life. These plans are unexpected, dangerous, painful, and scandalous. They can change everything.

A Presbyterian minister, Frederick Buechner, wrote in his book Peculiar Treasures that

“She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. ‘You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,’ he said. And as he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.”

What would Mary say? Would she do it? Gabriel and all the angels knew that God acts by freely allowing people to answer “yes” when He asks.

God is like that. God allows us to make our own choices, good or bad. God respects our freedom. He lets us do the wrong things, make the wrong choices, always waiting for the answer to be “Yes!”

We know what Mary answered: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

During Advent, we hear about Advent’s gifts to us. Advent is a time for self-examination, a time for repentance, for turning away from things and people and ways of life and behavior that keep us from drawing close to the God who is always looking to meet us, whether we acknowledge Him or not. Today’s Advent gift is the gift of commitment, the gift of turning toward God and making the commitment to offer ourselves as the servants of God, saying, along with Mary, our own “yes”: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.” These words will change everything.

Others have said “Yes” to God—Noah, Abram, Samuel, and Jesus himself, in the Garden of Gethsemane. That doesn’t mean that the road became smooth and straight for them, nor will it be so for us when we say, “Here I am.”

God calls us constantly, always seeking us, waiting to hear those words from us that Mary spoke and changed all of creation: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.” When we say them, the effect on human history probably won’t be so profound as when Mary said them. But the effect on us will be.

Saying “Yes” frees us from asking, “What’s in it for me?” and “What do I get out of it?”

Saying “Yes” to God frees us from trying to be self-important and self-serving, and frees us for service, for purpose, for meaning in our lives.

Like Mary, we have plans for our families and for our lives. As Advent ends, we need to remember that God has plans for us. We need to remember that it has been those times in our lives when things did not go as we had planned, when we thought things had gone wrong, that God was the most present.

When we say “Here I am” to God, we give up the absolute authority of our own plans. We agree to listen, and to let God say “No”, even to our best plans for ourselves, even to our best plans for God. That’s what happened to David when he planned a house for God.

Planning for the future is very important. We are expected to use the freedom God gave us responsibly. That includes making plans and decisions and carrying them out. There was nothing wrong with David’s plans, or with Mary’s. Christmas reminds us that God’s plans quite often are different from ours.

When, like Mary, we are open to hearing what it is God asks of us, we will find ourselves free to perform acts of caring and love, both small and large. We will make ourselves available for what God has in store for us, for what God needs us to do, and for what God has created us to do. And God needs you and me and every one of us to do it.

Don’t think the angels aren’t all holding their breath to hear your answer when God approaches you with a task. Don’t think that all the heavenly hosts don’t sing, “Alleluia!” when you say, freely, “yes.”

You don’t need to find new words. These words of Mary will do just fine: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

[Our lessons were Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, and Mark 1:1-8.]

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.

With these words, the “second Isaiah” brings good news to the people of Israel of God’s comfort and God’s redemption from their exile of 150 years. There is an end to God’s judgment and wrath because the God who punishes is also like a shepherd who leads his flock down the highway through the desert which leads to Jerusalem and home.

Now the word “comfort” here has a very specific meaning. “Comfort” doesn’t mean to put at ease or make comfortable. “Comfort” here means to “make strong” or to fortify. Take Heart! Be encouraged! Be prepared for the better days to come.

A voice tells us to be ready, to “prepare the way of the Lord”, to “make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” To this abandoned community who supposed that God had left them, Second Isaiah announces the God is approaching on this highway they are preparing.

People may wither and fade, like the grass and the flowers, but the word of God stands forever. God will come with might and gentleness as a shepherd cares for his flock.

Our Epistle reading was probably written in Peter’s name sometime after his death, probably about the end of the first century, but perhaps as late as the middle of the second century. Like 2 Timothy, this letter was written by a follower of the apostle, using the apostle’s name to give the letter greater weight.

The letter deals with a theme of Advent: waiting. Why has Christ taken so long to return? It’s probably a good thing that the writer didn’t know we could ask the same question in the twenty-first century. Waiting is based on two concerns: expectation (“will it be worth the wait?”) and response (“What shall I do in the meantime?”).

First, we are reminded that God’s time is not our time, that “one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” What is “soon” to God may not seem “soon” to us. (This sounds something like the way “Christmas is coming soon” doesn’t seem to mean the same thing to a parent and a child.)

God isn’t being slow about his promise for “slowness’ sake”. What looks like tardiness is really mercy. God is wanting everyone to have a chance to repent and be redeemed. God doesn’t want anyone to be damned. But, since we won’t know when that day will finally come—it will come without warning “like a thief”—don’t wait to repent, because you might not count time as God does and you might get it wrong!

Finally, we begin the Gospel of Mark by proclaiming “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” But, we don’t talk about Jesus in this reading.

In our culture, people seem to have to take lead, to be seen as the person in charge. Our political and business leaders don’t say, “It wasn’t all about me. There was a messenger who came before me, and in fact prepared the way.” But that is how the story of Jesus begins.

Even as the Jews of the time of Second Isaiah were in foreign exile in Babylon, the Jews of the First Century were under foreign occupation by Rome. So Mark looks back to the words of Second Isaiah to “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” He also quotes from the prophet Malachi, who warned Israel of God’s judgment. If we look for God to deliver us from our enemies, we must first examine ourselves to see whether we are fit to stand before God.

Our lessons today thus tell us to be strong, because God will redeem his people. We should not lose heart because the day of redemption seems delayed, because God wants everyone to be redeemed. And we prepare for that redemption by joining with John in confessing our sins and looking to the mightier one who is to come. In the words of the Christmas carol, “tidings of comfort and joy”, indeed!