The readings
from St Luke’s Gospel set for this week as we approach Christmas are all about St
Mary. Today’s reading, which we’ve just heard, is her great hymn of praise to
God which we know as the Magnificat.
Mary,
pregnant with Jesus, has travelled to a hill town to visit her cousin
Elizabeth, who is 6 months pregnant with John the Baptist. ‘When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped
in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and exclaimed with
a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb
… For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb
leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a
fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord”’.
And Mary
responds with the Magnificat.
Most of us,
I suppose, have grown up with a rather mawkish image of Mary as meek and mild,
a demure teenager who couldn’t say boo to a goose. This has been reinforced in
art, and in many of our favourite hymns and carols. ‘Then
gentle Mary meekly bowed her head’, we sing in one hymn. ‘Mary was that mother mild’, we sing in
another. Gentle Mary – mild, meek, the handmaid of the Lord, head bowed in
reverence. Can’t you see her there in so many paintings, stained glass windows,
and Christmas cards?
But this is
not the real Mary that we meet in her own words. The Magnificat is no sweet
lullaby - it is a battle cry, bold and defiant. Secure in her faith in God as
her Saviour, she cries out ‘From now on all
generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for
me, and holy is his name’. She is certain that God cares for the
poor, the powerless, the hungry, those with least in society, as he cares for
her: ‘He has shown strength with his arm; he has
scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the
powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry
with good things, and sent the rich away empty’.
We
short-change Mary when we idealise her as meek and mild. The real Mary was a
fighter, fierce for God’s justice and righteousness. This is how we should
remember her, and why we should revere her.
Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan church on Sunday 13th December 2020, the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Guadete Sunday.
In today’s Gospel reading (John 1:6-8, 19-28),
we hear that John the Baptist ‘came as a witness
to testify to the light’.
This light is the light of Christ. It is the light of the goodness and
love of God. It is right that we should rejoice in it.
‘Gaudete’ means ‘Rejoice’ in the Latin language, and this 3rd
Sunday of Advent is traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday, from the initial
word of the Latin introit, or hymn for the day.
‘Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you’.
In these words from
today’s Epistle reading (1Thessalonians 5:16-24), St Paul encourages the Christians
in Thessalonica to hold fast to their faith in the goodness and love of God –
and you and me too, thanks to their preservation of his words.
And Isaiah too testifies
to the goodness and love of God in today’s OT reading (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11),
through beautiful, heart-stirring poetry:
The Lord God
‘has sent me to bring good news
to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners.’
It is powerful stuff,
isn’t it? The Israelites to whom Isaiah is speaking would have drunk in his
words. They had been living in exile in Babylon for many years. They know all
about oppression and captivity. In a few years time, the armies of Cyrus, king
of Persia would conquer Babylon, and the Israelites, or some of them, would be
allowed to return home.
‘Their
descendants shall be known among the nations,
and their offspring among the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge
that they are a people whom the Lord
has blessed’,
says Isaiah.
‘Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances’.
These words of Paul
echo down the centuries to us. But let us be very clear just what a hard thing
Paul is asking. To rejoice, pray and give thanks when all is well is one thing.
But always? Without ceasing? In all circumstances? What of the man who has just
lost his job? What of the single mother who cannot pay the fuel bill? What of
the husband or wife whose life’s partner has just died of Covid-19, died alone?
Isn’t Paul asking the impossible of them?
When everything seems
to go against us it is very easy to become obsessed with our own misery, to
fall into clinical depression. For those who have been there - as I have been
there - life is very bleak, at least for a time. To be told to pull your socks
up is worse than useless – it makes you feel worse. Medication helps many people,
but at its root depression is a spiritual disease, I think. It is about feeling
cut off from the goodness and love of God – as Jesus himself felt when said on
the cross, ‘My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
Depression starts to
be cured when, for all our troubles, we begin to see things to rejoice over, things
to pray for, things to be thankful about.
For this reason, Paul’s
words are wise advice, both for the Christians in Thessalonica, and for all of
us who believe in the goodness and love of God. Quite apart from the theology,
they are a tool to help us resist depression.
You might like this
analogy: If
you stand with your back to the sun you see your own shadow, but if you turn to
face it your shadow is behind you.
‘Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances’.
It is different, of
course, for those who cannot for whatever reason experience God’s goodness and love.
Paul’s words won’t help them directly, only make them feel worse. But we
can help them, you and I can help them, by showing through our love and care
for them, that there are things to rejoice at, things to look forward to, things
to be thankful for.
The coming Christmas
season will be psychologically difficult for many people. Society demands that
everyone should feel jolly, when many don’t feel jolly at all. And this year
for many it is made even worse by the Covid-19 pandemic. Let us make a special
point of letting those who have lost a loved one in the last year know that we
are thinking of them. Let us keep an eye out for our neighbours who are lonely,
old, or finding life difficult, and show them love and support if they need it.
And let us give as generously as we can to those agencies who are trying to
relieve the shocking poverty too many are living with.
God sends us, as he
sent Isaiah:
‘to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit’.
I shall finish in
prayer with a Collect of the Word:
Eternal God,
you sent John the Baptist
to prepare the way for the coming of your Son:
grant us wisdom to see your purpose
and openness to hear your will,
that we too may prepare the way for Christ
who is coming in power and glory
to establish his rule of peace and justice;
through Jesus Christ our Judge and our Redeemer,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
Joakim is my pen-name, and I live with my wife Marty, who I here call Susanna, not in Babylon, but close to the banks of the Shannon in Ireland, where we share a one-acre garden. It was a ploughed field when we came here in 2000, and like all gardens, it is a work in progress. As I till it, I often reflect on the important questions, such as Life, the Universe, God and Love. As a member of the Church of Ireland, part of the Anglican Communion, I do so through a Christian prism.
