4th Sunday in Advent
21st December 2014
God made man
Over the past three Sundays of Advent we have reflected on three aspects
The Patriarchs
The Prophets
The Forerunner – John the Baptist – who called
Each of these focuses for our prayer and worship has an overlap with the next:
- The line of Patriarchs stretches from Abraham to Moses – telling the story of a people who emerge from the nomadic tribes of the Ancient Near East to become a settled people – first in subjugation to an Egyptian overlord and then as a people of their own, acknowledging no Lord but God.
- Moses may be the past of these Patriarchs of the Hebrew nation, but he is also the first and prime of the Prophets who seek to bring deeper understanding of God to his people;
- This line that starts with Moses stretches through the great prophets, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, who seek to get God’s chosen people to look beyond a God written in their own image to see God as something far greater and far more wonderful and brings us to John who calls people to look for God revealed among them;
- And finally John’s story overlaps with that of Jesus – through his mother’s cousin: Mary.
So having remember the Patriarchs, the Prophets and the call of John the Baptist out minds turn this week to Mary, and what she may add to this unfolding story. Of course this Advent story, told through four sets of people, comes to an end with the events that will unfold once more as we celebrate the Nativity in a few days’ time – and is itself the start of another story a story that ends here with us today. But before we run ahead to celebrate the gift of God made flesh there is an important message given to us as we remember Mary.
In Mary we have the story of a perfectly ordinary young Jewish girl – engaged to be married and approaching the time when this would take place – probably about the age of 12. We meet her husband-to-be – Joseph – probably a little older (though the Bible doesn’t actually say so!). And then we find out that she is pregnant – she is to give birth to a baby. Here (apart from the lack of the marriage ceremony – and even that was not always such an issue in ancient society if the father was the betrothed) we have a perfectly normal story – a young woman gives birth to a little boy – a human just like us. This gift that reveals the love of God is actually nothing special!
It is here that the anticipation of Christmas can lead us away from the heart of the matter – that Jesus is a human just like us. If we think of the shepherds and wise men visiting, and let our mind dwell on the conundrum of God becoming man we start to see echoes (however dim) of stories such as Zeus coming down and siring demi-gods with poor mortals like us. Even though this is not part of our own worldview it has some surprising resonances in the stories that are told and the way we listen to the Christmas message – it is all too easy to focus on the miraculous.
But the story that we are passed on through the gospels is not of some demi-god – some creature that is half god and half man. The gospels tell us of a unique person who is fully human, yet reveals the very will of God in his human life. Many inkwells have been spent trying to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s of this, but in the end the Christian faith accepts that God is perfectly revealed not in an instruction manual of Divine commands or in a far removed and super-human deity – but the God of love is revealed to us in the life of one who lived like us, of one who loved like us, and one who died like us. And Mary, that young maiden mother is the greatest reminder we have of the ordinary human form that reveals the love of God to us.
Now you may ask – ‘So what?’ And indeed you would not be alone. But the answer to that ‘So what?’ is important to each and every one of us, because that answer is that if the love of God is revealed to us in a life just like ours then there is no excuse for us to turn away and claim ignorance. There is no way that we can claim exemption from following Christ because he is somehow set apart, somehow so different that we cannot understand his message. Indeed, Mary reminds us how ordinary the life of Jesus is – how human he is. And once we let that truth sink in we have no option but to say that we cannot but know what the love of God is – it is a love that gives its all for another. It is this love that we are called to let dwell in our hearts, and by which we are called to live our lives.
In the very humanity of Jesus that is brought home to us by Mary his mother, we are called to see that, through the gift of grace, that same love that is God can dwell in our hearts. Through Mary the distance between God and man suddenly disappears as we are brought face to face with the knowledge of what it means for God to be seen in human form.
So, as in the coming days we remember that in Christ the creative Word of God – the very essence of what God is – is revealed to us, let us remember that the whole purpose of God becoming man was not to distance that one man from us, but to bring us closer to God.