Episcopal Church of the Incarnation

West Point, Mississippi

The Fourth Sunday of Advent (C)

Micah 5.2-5a Canticle: Magnificat Hebrews 10.5-10 Luke 1.39-44

May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, that

I may rightly and truly proclaim His holy Word. Amen.

It’s the fourth Sunday of Advent, the last Sunday before Christmas. We’re all looking forward to the annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus, of the coming of God into our midst. The world has been focused on Christmas since at least early November, but the world has focused on the holiday not in the literal sense of the word “holiday” (a holy day, that is one set aside for the Lord), but as a celebration of self. Even in the Church, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, people tend to focus on Christmas more than Advent. We like to skip over the idea of penitence and preparation, to get to celebration right away. So, on this last Sunday before Christmas, we might expect that we’re really ready for the Feast of the Nativity, for Christmas, but the Gospel lesson for today focuses not on Jesus, but on His mother.

Our Old Testament lesson makes clear reference to the coming of the Messiah, and the Epistle reminds us that Jesus made His one atoning sacrifice, once, for all. And yet, the Gospel itself focuses on the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary, and the psalm is replaced by her song, the Magnificat. What’s the Church up to? Why this focus on Mary?

I am reminded of my time working in a large hospice in Milwaukee, during my chaplaincy internship. Most of the patients to whom I ministered were Roman Catholics, and I found it useful to have a number of traditional prayers available to use, in English, Latin, Polish and German. One of those prayers was the Ave Maria, the Hail Mary. This is a prayer that is thought of, popularly, as an exclusively Roman Catholic fixture. It is not. It is “catholic” (small “c”) in the sense of being universal. It is used in all three branches of catholicism: the Roman, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Anglican. It is a key element of the Angelus prayer, prayed three times daily at all Anglican monasteries and convents, and at my own seminary. The Ave Maria is, in fact, completely “correct” even under the most evangelical interpretation of what it means to be an Anglican, although this is rarely realized.

The first line, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee” is right out of Luke, spoken by the angel Gabriel. We’ll hear this line in the gospel lesson at Christmas. The second line, “blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,” is also from Luke, spoken by Elizabeth. We hear this line today. “Holy Mary, Mother of God” labels Mary the Theotokos, the title given her at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and if you check in your prayer book, you’ll find that Ephesus is one of the first four ecumenical councils, recognized universally as authoritative by all branches of Anglicanism.

What about “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”? This concluding line of the prayer recognizes the communion of saints, as set forth both in the prayer book Catechism (BCP 862), in the Prayers of the People at Holy Eucharist, and in the canon of the Eucharist itself.

But wait, you say, the lesson today includes the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, and only the second line from the Ave Maria. Why refer to the Ave Maria when we are considering the Magnificat? My reason is not to try to get you to say the Hail Mary; it is to focus on how we can grow in faith by seeking to model our own response to God on that given by Mary.

Mary is, above all, the human being, the created being, who was and is closest to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Mary is the prototype for all faith; for the response to God’s call that He seeks in all of us. Mary could have said no to the angel; instead she said, “behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word;” in other words, according to the word of God’s messenger.

Who was Mary? St. Luke describes her as a resident of Nazareth, a virgin betrothed to a man of the house of David. What this means is that she was probably a girl of about fourteen or fifteen, living in a small town in an area considered to be a backwater, in a territory populated as much by non-Jews as by God’s chosen people. This girl is being quite literal when she says that God “hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden” (Luke 1.47). She is being literal, and so her song is one of praise and thanksgiving, the response that we are called to make. On this last Sunday of Advent, as we await with joy the commemoration of the incarnation of our Lord, our response is to be that of Mary: thanksgiving and praise. We are to magnify the Lord, to sing the praises of His glory.

In English, the verbs in the Magnificat are past tense. This is misleading. In the original Greek, the verbs take a form which is one of continuing action. In other words, what God has done, it is in His nature to do. What God has done He begins in Jesus, in the Word taking on a human nature, a human nature which He takes on from His mother, the most perfect human being ever created. In the Incarnation, the Creator and the perfect creation meet in one human being: the divine nature and the human nature are joined in one person.

What else is it that Mary says in the Magnificat, in the midst of this song of praise? “And his mercy is on them that fear him, throughout all generations.” We are reminded in Proverbs that the “fear of the Lord” is the beginning of all wisdom, for it is no more and no less than the recognition of who God is and what our relationship as creature must be to our Creator. And so we are instructed by this fourteen to fifteen year old girl in how to attain wisdom. She counsels that God is sovereign; let His will be our will. In Mary’s words, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

“According to your word.” I am reminded of the time I prayed the Ave Maria with a woman dying in hospice in Milwaukee. Remember how I said that I kept a number of prayers, including the Hail Mary, available in a number of languages? This came in handy when I spent time with a woman whom I will call Agnieska. Agnieska was in her eighties, and was dying of kidney failure. In her last days in hospice she had reverted to her childhood language, Polish, and so when I visited with her I would pray in Polish.

One night, when I was on call, I was summoned to Agnieska’s room about 2:00 in the morning. She was in her final moments of this life, breathing intermittently. I began to pray the Lord’s Prayer aloud, in Polish, and Agnieska woke up. She seemed alert, and asked, “Is she still here?” “Who?,” I asked. (There was no one else in the room.) “The woman in blue.” I looked around. She gestured toward the corner chair, and said, “She’s been sitting in the chair. She’s been praying.”

I asked Agnieska to describe the woman. “She’s beautiful,” she said. “She’s dressed in blue, and surrounded with light. She’s praying.” As you might imagine, this got my attention. I told Agnieska that I thought we should pray the Hail Mary. I began to pray, “Zdrowas Maryo, laski pelna Pan z Toba ...” (“Hail Mary, full of grace ...”) With each line, I would pray aloud, and she would repeat the words, each line becoming softer and much slower, until at the words “i w godzine smierci naszej” (“now and at the hour of our death”) Agnieska died.

Mary reminds us this final Sunday in Advent that it is the Lord Himself whom we await in joy. In her final words in the Magnificat, Mary reminds us that God keeps His promises: “He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant ...as he promised to our forefathers ...” Remembering His mercy indeed; God’s supreme mercy that His only Son took on our flesh, to dwell among us, to make for all time a perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

May we, like the Mary described by Elizabeth, be the one who “believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to [us] by the Lord.” May we, too rejoice in God; the God of mercy; the God who keeps His promises.

Amen!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.