Love Has Come

Advent 4 – Love

Today's Reading: Luke 1:26-45 (feel free to read the whole chapter!)

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Advent Wreath Liturgy: The Love of God-With-Us does not come as mere feeling, or sentimental fluff. Love cannot be imposed from on high. Love is our greatest commandment—tending tenderly to God, to other, and to self. The Love of God-With-Us is love in action, radical love practices: redistribution of resources and risks, solidarity with those most exposed to threat, hospitality to caravans, refugees, migrants, and sojourners, caring for those we’ve been taught to despise, or fear. This love is fierce, and tender. It defies unjust rules and flattens hierarchies of value. The Love of God-With-Us is collective, liberating us from deadly alienation. Love is gestating in darkness; it comes unexpectedly. Love invites our expectation, and demands our participation. Prepare the way, for Love enfleshed. May Love be birthed among, within, and through us, this Advent. (Advent liturgy © Enfleshed: 2018, Rev. Anna Blaedel.)

We have reached the last week of Advent, we have lit the candle of love and we are days away from lighting the Christ candle as we celebrate our dear Savior’s birth. At Christmas, we are reminded of the love God has for us; a love so deep that God could not stay away. God came near to us, BECAME one of us - took on our flesh and lived as we live. This is the miracle of all miracles, for gods had always been known to be far above and beyond humans; what kind of god would humble themself and enter the human race?.. This was unheard of. And yet, Mary is told she is carrying the Christ child in her womb. Mary, an unwed teenager of no particular status among her peers, is with God. This lowly servant is God’s favored one (V. 28).

When the angel first reveals this message to Mary she is perplexed.. she ponders.. she wonders, “How can this be?” Not only is she a virgin, but she is (seemingly) a nobody! (V. 29, 34) How could it possibly be that God would choose her, that God would become her son.. The angel then reminders her, that NOTHING is impossible with God! (V. 37) Mary obediently responds, giving her life up as servant of the Lord (literally and figuratively) (V. 38). If I were Mary, I would have had a lot of questions and fear.. I would have lain awake at night wondering how I could ever take care of God! Would he be like a normal baby who cried all night and needed diaper changes, or would he be miraculously self-sufficient? Does a baby who is also God need to eat? Need to sleep? Need to do things our normal human bodies need to do? Just how human would this baby be!?!?

If Mary had these same questions and fears, we are not told about them. Instead, Mary seems to have no time for negativity, as she picks up and goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, whom we are told is also pregnant despite her older age (she is pregnant with John the Baptist / V. 36). When Mary arrives the boys jump for joy in their mothers wombs and Mary is reassured of the angels message (V. 39-44). It is true. God has come. Love has come.

In Mary’s reassured excitement, we get her response that we now know as the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, who has looked with favor on me, a lowly servant!” She goes on to recognize that not only has God done great things for her, but through her and this child, God is fulfilling the promise made to Abraham and his descendants. Mary proclaims with overwhelming joy that through this Christ child God will show mercy on her peoples and finally scatter the proud and bring down the mighty oppressor from their thrones! God will lift up the lowly and fill the hungry, turning the rich and powerful away empty handed (V. 46-55).

This promise sounded like hope, peace, joy and love to the Israelites and those who were suffering, but it sounded like an evil threat to those in power. God remembers God’s promise with Israel and comes to relieve their suffering. THIS is LOVE incarnate! But remember our text from Isaiah? “The Lord will lift up every valley and lay low every mountain and hill, leveling uneven ground and smoothing all the rough places” (Isaiah 40:4). God’s love does not look like a grand role reversal, but rather a great equalizer. Sin is not necessarily synonymous with holding positions of power or having money, but rather what we do with that power and money can be sinful. The sin is in creating a hierarchy of humanity, where the few hoard all the riches while the masses suffer.. or where those in power oppress rather than nurture and sustain the life God created. The rich will go away empty handed, because they already have what they need. The powerful will be cast from their thrones, because they are not God.

God’s love is SO deep for each and every one of us that God wants ALL people to flourish. God’s love is SO deep that God not only humbles the proud of heart, but becomes a humble baby born in a manger, so that God can physically be with us, establish God’s reign and literally lead the way to change. God’s love is indeed NOT just some sentimental fluff, rather God’s love is fierce yet tender. Gentle enough to fill us with peace, but strong enough to topple hierarchies and defy injustice! God’s love is not a noun; it’s not an object we can cuddle up to when we need it, like our favorite teddy bear or pillow pet. God’s love is a verb - alive and active! God’s love looks like the radical practices of redistribution of resources and risks. It looks like solidarity with the vulnerable, radical hospitality, and extending care even to our enemies.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible comes from 1 John 4:19, “We love because God first loved us.” God calls us to love as God loved. God in Christ shows us how! And God in Spirit continues to give us the power to do so; to put love into action, to participate in what God is doing out of love in our world - in our lives today. We may not be a people oppressed by an empire like those of Jesus’ day, but our world today is still riddled with injustice. 2020 has exposed us to more than a deadly virus; it has also exposed the ways in which racism is still alive and well in our nation.. it has exposed the failings in our system to care for the ‘least of these’.. it has exposed divisions so deep many of us are left wondering if we can ever possibly bridge the gap and find healing.

2020 has exposed us to death and to the systems in our lives that wield death and defy God. Yet even in 2020, Christmas still comes to remind us of God’s love that is SO powerful it makes the impossible possible. This truth not only gives us hope and peace, but it makes our hearts leap inside our chest as we rejoice with Mary that God has come! Love has come! God’s promise of mercy, liberation, and rest has been birthed among us and God’s justice reigns! With Mary we sing, “Great and mighty are you, O Faithful one, strong is your justice, strong your love! As you promised to Sarah and Abraham, kindness forevermore!”

Love is our greatest commandment - to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:36-40). Do not be afraid, love has come to light the way, to make possible a love that can pierce the toughest of hearts and topple the strongest of hierarchies. Rejoice, for we who have walked in darkness have seen a great light, a child has been born for us and we shall call him Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace! (Isaiah 9:2-7) This birth has changed history; the old has passed away and new life has come into being and this life is the light of all people. This light shines in the darkness and cannot/will not be overcome (John 1:5, 9).

There is no going back to how it was before Christ; there is no going back to how it was before 2020. There is new life to live! There is love to put into action. There is new light to behold. And if you are unsure, go outside tomorrow, just after sunset and behold the great light that earth has not seen for hundreds of years. Perhaps this is even the very light they experienced that first Christmas Eve.

Love is gestating in darkness.

Love has come to light the way to new life.

Prepare the way for Love enfleshed. Amen.

Holden Evening Prayer's Magnificat (Marty Haugen):

My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you,

You have looked with love on your servant here, and blessed me all my life

through. Great and mighty are you, O Holy One, strong is y our kindness

evermore. How you favor the weak and lowly one, humbling the proud of

heart.

You have cast the mighty down from their thrones, and up lifted the humble

of heart, You have filled the hungry with wondrous things, and left the

wealthy no part. Great and mighty are you, O Faithful One, strong is your

justice strong your love, As you promised to Sarah and Abraham, kindness

forevermore.