ADVENT III - THE DISCIPLINE OF WAITING

Third Sunday of Advent

Dec 15, 2013

Fr. Philip Eberhart

The Discipline of Waiting

Probably the hardest part of life and of our discipleship is the necessity of waiting.  Anyone ever feel like WAIT is a four-letter-word!???  Our scriptures this morning reveal the necessity of waiting and some of the secrets of success in this discipline that the Lord consistently seems to require of us.  And I have to say here at the outset that this is a particular problem for us in the west, much more than it is for almost any other culture around the world or down through history!!!  We are so much an "instant oatmeal - Instant Coffee - toaster strudel - leggo waffles" culture -  anything that will get us there faster is an object of worship!

A Keurig?  What is that?  A single shot instant coffee maker!  You can have your brewed expresso or latte in a minute - less than the time it used to take to boil water and stir in the awful instant coffee stuff.  Its all about speed for our culture and if there is one thing that we collectively HATE, it's to WAIT!

Can I say it here?   God takes a longer view!

And He has built that necessity into the fabric of life.  Waiting means that God is at work in a preparatory fashion.  The question for us in America and the West becomes how do we wait on God and not just do it ourselves.  We have gotten in so much trouble in this country and in our own lives on account of our impatience with God and His processes - we get out ahead and end up doing things  in our own power. In fact I believe that that is the majority of the problem in standard issue American Christianity!  We approach God with our need for instant gratification and when He doesn't respond appropriately or in our time table, we go on ahead.

We leave God behind!

God is a God who uses time and circumstance in His favor!  And to be in right relationship with Him we need to understand His priorities and His heart.  I've been in a relationship with God now for coming up on 50 years and if I've learned anything ( and that is a legitimate question ) ... IF I've learned anything ... I've learned that He is not in a hurry!  And that we can't help Him out in almost any way!!  God's time is God's time - so much so that scripture actually has a different word for it - KAIROS.

The word for the regular passage of time is CHRONOS - the ticking of the seconds away - chronograph, and chronology - the study of time.  But when the time becomes "FULL" - when the season is here for the fulfillment of promise - for the execution of God's plan, often the word changes and KAIROS is used.  It is the "fullness of time"  - when that for which we have waited is about to be made manifest!  The time of the harvest is Kairos time!  Paul in Galatians encourages them with the words:  "let us not become weary in well doing, for in due season we will reap, if we do not faint." (Gal 6:9)  

So how do we endure the CHRONOS while waiting for the KAIROS?? 

Time and circumstance are tools that God has firmly in hand!  And the work of His hands today is in many ways the same work Jesus grew up doing.  It's ironic - almost prophetic - that Jesus was a carpenter - the eldest son of his earthy father, Joseph, who would have been trained in his father's craft and expected to take over the family business in time.  Which Jesus probably actually did for a time, before His baptism by his cousin, John.

How did Jesus wait???   We have evidence that He knew his place in life early on - the incident of his staying behind in the temple at Jerusalem and being in conversation with the rabbi's and teachers there - "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?"  There was already at 12 a thoroughly formed sense in Jesus of His identity as God's Son and that there was "business" to do there as well - and yet for nearly 20 years he subjected Himself to his earthly father and became the expected carpenter of Nazareth.

I love a prayer that I learned from Bishop Terry Kelshaw a few years back:

Lord Jesus Christ
Master Carpenter of Nazareth
Who on the cross
In wood and nails
First worked our full salvation;
Use well your tools
In this your workshop
That we who come to you rough hewn
May by your grace
Be fashioned to a true beauty and usefulness
In your service.

   AMEN

This is a prayer that captures the essence of Jesus, the carpenter, who is Lord!  The experience of the wood in a carpentry shop is one of waiting!  The tools for shaping and forming the wood are not a pleasant thing, if the wood were animate.  There is cutting and nailing and fitting-together - there is planing and sanding and painting involved.  The "circumstances" of being formed are not all that pleasant !  But God has a finished product in mind!

So what is all the waiting for?

Throughout our readings this morning we hear the signs of the goal. We catch glimpses of the end product that God has in mind:

From Isaiah...

They shall see the glory of the LORD,

the majesty of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees.

Say to those who are of a fearful heart,

"Be strong, do not fear!

Here is your God.

He will come with vengeance,

with terrible recompense.

He will come and save you."

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then the lame shall leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

From David the Psalmist:

7

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind; *
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;

8

The LORD loves the righteous;
the LORD cares for the stranger; *
he sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked.

From Mary, His mother:

He has mercy on those who fear him *
    in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
    and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
    for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers, *
    to Abraham and his children for ever.

From Jesus Himself:

Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

Waiting on the Lord

Apparently Jesus (and Mary) had a good grasp on this waiting thing.  After his time in the temple in Jerusalem it was nearly 20 years before he was baptized by John and when into his public ministry and then only for 3 years. 

It seems to me there is a lesson for us to learn:

1.  God has things well in hand!  He has a plan and design and our part is to "trust in Him, lean not on our own understanding, acknowledge Him in all our ways and HE will make our paths straight"

2. Wait is a four-letter-word.  God uses time and circumstance in our lives to form us into, as Bishop Kelshaw's prayer mentioned, "a true beauty and usefulness" for the Kingdom of God and for eternity.  Waiting is not an easy thing, and it never has been, for any of God's people.  It was not intended to be! Just read some of the Psalms of David. He had to wait in some of the most dire of circumstances - all after he was anointed by Samuel to be the next King!!!

3. Look to what God is forming.  His plan is to fashion you into the very likeness of Jesus!

The bible tells us that God has specific works planned out for us to walk in, but the timing of those works He keeps for himself!  That is why we need to be ready!  It's not just Jesus' return that we are waiting for - we get up each day, assured that His mercy is renewed every morning and that we are to be ready to walk in that mercy, to walk justly with others and humbly with Him.  We must come to the place where we recognize that every step, every turn, every breath is from HIM - every moment of every day is gift and we live them best when we look to the giver for His direction and empowerment.

Mary had her attitude right at the beginning - but there were nine months to wait - and lots of circumstances to weather, before Jesus was born!

John the Baptist had his attitude right, but came to a place where he doubted - where he wondered, and sent his men to ask Jesus - "are you the one or should we look for another." Last week we mentioned John's statement:  "He must increase and I must decrease."  It was in that process that these questions came, even for John the Baptist!

So don't feel ashamed or condemned that you hate to wait!  It's in our blood!  We have eternity build in!  Waiting does not come naturally.  But it is natural and necessary.

Shall we pray:

Lord Jesus Christ
Master Carpenter of Nazareth
Who on the cross
In wood and nails
First worked our full salvation;
Use well your tools
In this your workshop
That we who come to you rough hewn
May by your grace
Be fashioned to a true beauty and usefulness
In your service.

   AMEN

ADVENT II - PREPARING FOR HOPE

Second Sunday of Advent

December 8, 2013

Fr. Philip D. Eberhart

PREPARING FOR HOPE

Whenever someone says I need to REPENT of something, for me it automatically sounds like judgment and a process that I'm unwilling to engage, just because I don't like change all that much.  I'm kind of set in my ways.  Like most of us.  REPENT has such a negative and judgmental sound to it, - so much so that we rarely hear it used today.  We would much rather talk about our need for therapy or our "issues" in living our lives - we have turned sin into a non-starter - a non-category in our thinking.

SIN reminds us that there is a WAY that we should be walking in - that we should be living our lives in a certain way.

SIN reminds us that there is a TRUTH that continues to stand in the face of our - yes, even our stubborn rebellion.

SIN reminds us that there is a LIFE that can be lived in alignment with the God who created and who sustains us.

SIN reminds us that we are partakers of the atmosphere - the air we breathe is lawlessness and independence!

I'm struck this morning by the proximity of words.  Often in the same sentences in Scripture we see the words REPENT and the word HOPE or the word LIFE.  I remember reading a little book once by Mother Basilea Schlinck, the founder of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Germany.  The book was called "Repentance - The Joy-filled Life".  The call that she spoke of in the book was the call to REPENT - in the case of their order of sisters, to "repent for the actions of the Nazi's and the German people toward the Jews in WW II".  This was the clear mandate of Mother Basilea and the order continues even today!

To repent is to be reconnected to hope and to life - to the very life of God!!

Our gospel this morning, on this Second Sunday of Advent, is the story of John, the Baptizer, whose message was also one of repentance for sin and turning from one kind of life to a new kind of life.  A message of preparation is what we hear this morning - preparing for the advent of the Messiah - the one promised by God.  John was a forerunner - a prophet appointed to bring a message - a particular message:  

                "In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,               

                     "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." 

                      This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

                    "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
                        `Prepare the way of the Lord,
                         make his paths straight.'"

John, the apostle, tells us more about John, the Baptist than perhaps any other gospeler.  In John's Gospel, the first three chapters reveal insights into the man and the dynamic between John and Jesus that existed, since they were cousins, a fact that Luke reveals to us in his account.

In John's gospel, John the Baptist points to Jesus as the messiah, refusing to take any of the accolades of the people, even to the point of giving Jesus some of his followers - Andrew being a major one, the brother of Simon Peter.  John's words, even in chapter 3 of John's gospel, when questioned again about Jesus, said this:

²⁵ A debate broke out between John’s disciples and a certain Jew^[h] over ceremonial cleansing. ²⁶ So John’s disciples came to him and said, “Rabbi, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you identified as the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going to him instead of coming to us.”

²⁷ John replied, “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves know how plainly I told you, ‘I am not the Messiah. I am only here to prepare the way for him.’ ²⁹ It is the bridegroom who marries the bride, and the best man is simply glad to stand with him and hear his vows. Therefore, I am filled with joy at his success. ³⁰ He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.

John, the baptizer, knew his task and his time in relationship to his cousin, Jesus.  It would have been super easy to get defensive and to begin to "own" more than he had been given, especially in the face of the accusations of his own disciples, but John keeps his perspective and rightly puts them and himself in the place he held as a forerunner - the best man at the wedding!  He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.

Friends, the message of repentance that we hear in this season is one that connects us to the life that God intends for us. It is the doorway to access the forgiveness that Jesus spoke from the Cross - our message from a few weeks ago.  That is the reason that it is almost always in the same sentence with the words like hope and life and Kingdom of God!

You remember the painting of Jesus knocking on the door of our hearts?  Repentance is our coming to the door from the inside and opening the door to the knock of Jesus and letting him fulfill his promise to come in and sup with us and us with him!

Often we think of repentance from sin, as this awful thing - because we mix it with the devil's concoction of condemnation and guilt that leads us to self-condemnation and a judgment that we can never be truly saved.  But that is a lie from the pit of Hell!  Jesus said it best when he said, "The son of man came not to condemn the world, but that through Him the world might be saved!"  The message of repentance is not one of condemnation, but one of hope and love and grace.

We need to understand the first part of the prayer that we pray so often:  "Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace"  

Did you hear it?   "THAT EVERYONE MIGHT COME WITHIN THE REACH OF YOUR SAVING EMBRACE"

Repentance is the joy filled life because it leads us back into relationship with Jesus and with His Father!  The message of repentance is amiss when it is mixed with condemnation and judgmentalism. Those are not from the heart of the Father, nor are they from the Word of the Son!  Paul tells us that "godly sorrow leads us to repentance."  It is not a message of condemnation, but a message of great love, of sacrifice and of grace extended.

Both John and Jesus came preaching the same message, line for line:   "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"  God is extending His hand to you - the Kingdom of Heaven - relationship with the Father is "at hand" - is extended to you in this moment. How will you respond?

Jesus' life and message, THE GOSPEL, was lived and preached as the "real life" extension of God's hand towards us.  Our response to His offer begins in repentance and ends in relationship... in restoration... in hope of redemption... and the hope of heaven.  Paul in fact refers to the Father as "The God of Hope!"  His letter to the Romans is a monument to this message of God's hand extended, through him to the Gentiles - to the whole world!

And my prayer and blessing throughout this season of Advent is the last line of our reading from Romans this morning!  Look there and read it together with me:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist's and the message of the Gospel's, along with Paul's subsequent message in his teaching and letters to the churches is the same!  It is the message of the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of God that leads us to repentance, to turn from our sin and to take the hand of Jesus extended.  

I wonder - are you prepared for His coming?  Our collect this morning, that we will read in a few minutes during our prayers says it this way:

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

When we pray in a few minutes, take those words to heart!   Give us grace, Merciful God, to heed the warnings of the Prophets, like John the Baptist, and to forsake our sins, SO THAT we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ - his first coming and His second coming, in power and great glory.

Let us get and remain prepared for His coming.  That is the task of this season of Advent.  It is the force of the message we are hearing today, "Repent - for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

Amen and amen.

ADVENT I - AWAKE, O SLEEPER !!

ADVENT I

December 2, 2013

Fr. Philip Eberhart

AWAKE, O SLEEPER !!

Welcome to Advent.  Happy New Year Church!

At REZ we like to use the seasons of Advent and Lent to look inside, this season is one of anticipation - this morning's theme is "AWAKE, O SLEEPER" -

Does anyone else here have a routine when you first get up?  Some people stumble out of bed and make a bee line for the coffee maker - or even set it to make it automatically, so the magic elixir is already done when the alarm goes off!  Others get up and exercise, or read, some have a quiet time, others listen to the news.  I hope we all pray first thing in the morning. You know, say, "Good Morning, Lord"  instead of  "Good Lord, it's morning!" But we all have some routine, unique to us, that is the process of coming fully awake and being ready for the day.

This morning our readings bid us come AWAKE.

We hear it in the words of Jesus:

if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.

In the words of Paul:

it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.

OR in the words of Isaiah:

O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the LORD!

Even in our prayer for Advent 1:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light...

Waking up is a daily experience for all of us.  We recognize that these cycles of rest and sleep are necessary, but we can't stay there and remain ...  productive;  even employed; or married;  healthy; even alive!  If we stay asleep all the time, they call it something else:   a coma!  A vegetative state!!

Staying asleep is a bad thing - big time.  And it is something that the combined voices of Scripture and our prayer book tradition warn against!  Welcome to ADVENT - the alarm is sounding!  Its time to wake up - its time to get up and get in the game!  The work of God is moving on around us, and the extent to which we are asleep, is the extent to which we are more of a hindrance than a help in that Kingdom work!  The extent to which we try to remain asleep during the alarm, is the extent to which we are in danger.

God wants us to get up and get in the game.  But we love to be spectators!  We love to cheer on our favorite sports team, from high school to the pros!  Most of us will watch the Bronco game this afternoon I imagine.  I love the observation about professional sports that Nicky Gumbel makes about football, "It's 22 guys on the field, desperately in need of a rest, surrounded by 70,000 desperately in need of exercise!"  That is a perfect description for the church as well!

God is calling us to awaken - to shake off the shackles of slumber, the works of darkness and to, I love this line in our collect, "Put on the Armor of Light!"

All of us put something on after getting up - a robe and slippers, our bath robe or a pull over.  Something ... and usually we change again after we shower and get ready for the day.  We have a set of comfy things we wear around the house, and a set of work clothes, be they jeans and work boots or a suit and tie.  We are all pretty well experts at putting things on as well.  Most of us can dress ourselves, some with more success than others!!

This is the metaphor that Paul uses over and over and over again when speaking about our life in Christ!  We are told to PUT ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.  So we know how to put on our clothes - apparently, from looking at you all - but do we know how to "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ?"

How do we clothe ourselves in Christ?  How many here have played sports in some fashion at some time?  Have you ever played basketball in street shoes and a suit and tie?  Not for more than about 2 minutes.  Every game requires its own special set of clothing, if nothing more than the colors of a team, like the Rockies or Manchester United ... or if its the more elaborate uniforms and gear of professional hockey or football in the US.  Each team takes special care to dress appropriately to their sport - even within the sport there are differences in uniforms - if you are a lineman your helmet has a special face guard - if you are a quarterback or receiver, another specially designed face guard.  And if your a goalie, well, whoa Nellie!!  I'm not sure how those guys even move!!

The point is that there are things which identify us all in our putting on Jesus -  His identifying marks - you know:  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness - that stuff;  and there are specific things for us individually that denote a specific role on the team:  leadership, administration, discernment, helps, service, hospitality - or Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor or Teacher;  and the lists go on and on.

Once it was asked, "If you were brought up on charges of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"  Are you known to be a Christian among your peers at work, among your colleagues at the office, on your block, in your own home?

Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ is a daily activity, just like getting dressed in the morning.  Just like getting up from sleeping is a process we all have to engage in, so is the discipline of being awake ... spiritually.  We talked about the process of getting the Word inside you a couple weeks back - do you remember? 

Hold up your hand and wiggle your pinkie!  

HEAR, next:  READ, next:  MARK, next:  LEARN, and:  INWARDLY DIGEST!  Each step gets more and more of JESUS inside of us!  And we are to be like a sponge!  Filled up with Jesus so that when the world squeezes us it gets ...  ummmm?     JESUS!  That is the way that most people are going to come into contact with Jesus!  Not by coming here to this building!!

There is a reason that the word GO appears over 1500 times in the Bible!  If you get up and get dressed every day of your life but you never leave your house... what's the point.  If you do that, they will tell you that you have "agoraphobia" - the fear of the outside world!!  And I'm afraid that may be an accurate diagnosis of the place that the Church is in, especially here in the West.  We are one of the most powerful forces for good on the face of the planet, and we are asleep or afraid - locked inside our homes and churches.

So Wake Up!  

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you!

Actually I did.

Put on the Armor of Light!  Isn't that an interesting turn of phrase?  It's in our morning collect, and it begs the question about both armor and about light!

In the East African Revival they had a practice they called, "walking in the light."  Of course, the phrase is taken from 1 Jn 1:7, "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin!"  The metaphor of light is one that is pretty self evident.  But the effect of the light in this passage from 1 Jn is not.  Walking in the light means to walk in purity, with a clear conscience toward one another - keeping short accounts with our brothers and sisters, our family in the Lord.

Of course this assumes that we have more than a passing acquaintance - a Sunday morning only relationship - with each other.  It assumes a depth of community - koinonia or common life - life lived together, that we actually rarely see here in America.  But the promise is staggering!  If we walk in this kind of relationship with each other, keeping our accounts of hurt and offense short, we have koinonia together - a spiritual gift of the Unity of the Spirit, held in the Bond of Peace!  But there is something else - an added benefit:   And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin!  

Have you ever wondered how the Blood of Christ gets applied to the specifics of our sin and its effects in our lives and the lives of others?  through confession and repentance, but most effectively, through confession to one another.  It's easy for us to confess to God (up there) - it's not too easy for us to confess to God, with skin on - sitting next to us.  To go and make it right - to extend the actual "peace of the Lord."  to not hold onto offenses and unforgiveness, but to forgive and to be agents of forgiveness and healing.

This is putting on the Lord Jesus Christ - Putting on the Armor of Light!  It's time for us to wake up!  To live our life together as though we are actually the People of God like we say we are.  It's time to wake up to His Word in our lives.  It's time to wake up to repentance and forgiveness - in our own lives and extended to the world around us.

May God give us His blessing and His presence as we seek His face this day and throughout this season of Advent and beyond.

May we pray...  this is the prayer of the penitent 

from our prayer book's Ministry of Confession and Reconciliation ...

Holy God, heavenly Father, you formed me from the dust in

your image and likeness, and redeemed me from sin and

death by the cross of your Son Jesus Christ.  Through the

water of baptism you clothed me with the shining garment of

his righteousness, and established me among your children in

your kingdom.  But I have squandered the inheritance of your

saints, and have wandered far in a land that is waste.

Especially, I confess to you and to the Church  .  .  .

Here the Penitent confesses particular sins.

Therefore, O Lord, from these and all other sins I cannot

now remember, I turn to you in sorrow and repentance. 

Receive me again into the arms of your mercy, and restore me

to the blessed company of your faithful people; through him

in whom you have redeemed the world, your Son our Savior

Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Waiting on the Lord

December 23, 2012

Advent IV

Fr. Philip Eberhart

Waiting on the Lord

Audio File

  

Well, welcome to the second day past the end of the world!!  Apparently the Mayans were wrong,  or…  the calendar just ended.  I saw a cartoon of one Mayan asking the other why the calendar stopped there, and he said, “I ran out of rock!”

It may be just that simple, when it comes to the Mayans, and we get wrapped up in and mesmerized with fantasies, while the world around us laughs.

I also saw two other cartoons this weekend:  One had an absent-minded Jesus saying,

“That end of the world thing!   That was today?”  and another had Jesus saying, “End the world, 4 days before my birthday!  No Way!”

So once again we can get on with the living of life and the loving of others, as we have been commanded to do all along.

I think there is a reason why, over and over the Lord tells us in Scripture that “the day and the hour” are above our pay grade!  Once he even said they are above His, but are in the hands of the Father.

But this past week, has brought something to the fore for me, as I’ve talked with people about the end of the world (given that there was no real sense of fear here) – I’ve wondered what life would be like for us, if we lived our lives in expectation of His appearing?

This Sunday we center on the experience of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in our readings and songs.  There was one line that really struck me as I read through the readings this week:  the last line of the Gospel reading:

“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." 

This was spoken of Mary by her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of the prophet, John, the Baptizer, Jesus’ cousin.  And it was spoken of Mary, in the first few days or weeks of her pregnancy; in fact Luke has her going to stay with Elizabeth right after the Annunciation by the Angel Gabriel.  There is no outward and visible sign of the Lord’s fulfillment of the Angelic word.  

“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

Waiting for the end of the world – let me say it a bit better – waiting for the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory for us in these days, is not unlike what Mary went through as she waited for His first advent. 

In effect we are “pregnant” with faith for the Kingdom of God to come.

Mary was incredulous at the things that were said to her.  Even the greeting, “favored one!” she pondered as she heard it!  

This morning I want to place us and today in the place of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

She has been given a promise, but there are no outward signs, other than this visitation and the words spoken to her at the Annunciation.  

When we think of Christ’s second coming, we have no outward signs to go by, other than His words, describing the times and the overarching attitudes of men and women.  No dates or even world events that can be collated with dates, for certain.  We are stuck with faith! 

Just like Mary, at the point of our gospel, all she had was faith. 

Have you ever felt that way?  Kind of believing against all the evidence?  I know I have.

And the angel’s words ring – “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

And Mary’s response to the angel is fantastic!  Would that our response to God and His promises would be like this:

Behold the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your Word.”

In the life of our parish, we have heard over and over again the Big Three for working in the Kingdom of God:

Willingness – Availability and Obedience;   all three here are in view with Mary.

 

As she goes down the road to visit with her cousin, Mary must have been awash in the moments with the Angel and awash in the promise of His words.  I think every mother is aware of these moments – of new life forming inside – even at its earliest stages.  There are physical changes that begin to happen very quickly.

But for Mary, the most significant change was the spiritual place she found herself in.

“Hail, favored one. The Lord is with you.”

Take a moment and do a personal inventory of your own spiritual position in relation to the Father, especially in relation to His favor on your life and His presence in it. 

You see, Mary was given a foretaste in this experience, of what we have been ushered into as a result of the birth and of the death of her child.

 

Favor

Was it that Mary was especially holy, that she had a special upbringing or special circumstances of birth herself – we don’t really know those things apart from legend.

What we do know is that Mary was a young lady, perhaps we would even call her a girl still, today.  We know that she was in the lineage of David, as was Joseph, her intended.

 

We know that this set of circumstances, pregnant before the wedding, was not considered by many to be a place of “favor” in that society.  Yet, here she was.

The most amazing feature of Mary’s walk for me, is her willingness:  “Be it unto me according to your Word.”

Val once asked me, “Could Mary have said, No!”  I have to say she could have.  We all have the capacity as humans to say No to God.  “No Lord” is one of my favorite oxymorons!  And Mary chose availability to God call, to His word concerning her, and she obeyed that word.

Favor is something that God bestows on us as a gift of grace.  His grace working in and through our hum drum, plain Jane life.  “God chooses us,” Jesus told his disciples, “and He calls us His friends!”  Amazing words.

And those words are words that have promise for us, the same promise that the words of the angel held for Mary 

“The Lord is with you.”

 

Presence

Jesus modeled this, as well as his mother.  Perhaps it is one of the things that Mary passed on from her parentage of Jesus – a dependence on the real presence of God in her life, for the fulfillment of His Word to her.  There was no other source possible!

Mary could not “help out” with this project!  

And we can not “help out” with the work that God is doing inside us – and we should not help out with the work that God wants to accomplish through us!

In fact, the more we “help out” the more we mess things up, in my experience.

So we need to keep in mind the theme of being “pregnant with faith and with the Kingdom of God” and know that this is not something that can be managed.

God’s presence inside us is accomplished by our out-and-out surrender, as I mentioned last week – Hands UP!!   It is surrender to God that opens our hands and our hearts to the movement of His Spirit in and then through us.

This is our inheritance and our bequest.  The Holy Spirit is the deposit – the down payment on our life eternal – in the here and now!  

So we must watch Mary, and model our life and our ministry after her and after her Son, Jesus, the Christ.

“… blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

 

Let us pray.

Lord, we believe. 

We pray that like Mary, the Mother of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we may be enabled to hear your voice speaking and to trust in Your Word to us.  Give us patience to rest in your providence and provision.  Give us faith to believe. Give us grace to persevere in the face of obstacles and adversity.

Let your will be done for us, Lord, according to Your Word.  We declare to you our willingness ( I declare to you my willingness).  Lord, show me where my willingness to be yours and to serve you fades.

And move me, Lord.  Move me from willingness to availability, Lord.  Clear my head and heart of busyness and make room in my schedule for you and for your work!

And finally, Lord Jesus, help us, help me to be obedient – to do your work in your way and in your time, each day.  Let me not run ahead of you or lag behind you in my obedience.  Help me to keep in step with Your Spirit.

For the sake of your Kingdom, Jesus, and for the fame of Your Name, we pray.

Amen.