Today is the fourth and final Sunday of Advent — the last Sunday before we celebrate
Christmas.
Later this week, on Tuesday, we’ll gather for our Christmas Eve service - as a reminder, one
service will be held at 12 p.m. and the other at 5 p.m. and the services will be same, it’s a matter
of what works better for your schedule.
And then on Wednesday, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in Christmas, the culmination of
the Advent Season.
As I was preparing for today’s sermon, I was struck by how similar the themes are between this
season of Advent that we’re in right now and the story that comes to us today from the first
chapter of Luke.
I think many of you grew up experiencing Advent as a time when the rhythms of the church
calendar add layers of significance to this season - which is already so meaningful with
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
The idea of the church calendar is something I’ve only recently begun to reflect on—considering
what it means and how it connects to daily life.
It has been such a gift to experience this added richness for the first time, to step into the beauty
and rhythm of Advent, and to share in its meaning alongside all of you.
Advent is a season of waiting. It begins in the dark and unfolds over four weeks, each week has
its own theme: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. There’s an advent wreath, where each week a
candle is lit and at the Christmas Eve service this Tuesday, the final candle, the Christ candle,
will be lit.
Just as we wait during Advent for the day we mark Christ’s birth, so too the people of Israel in
Mary and Elizabeth’s time were waiting.
In the same way that Advent begins in darkness, with candles lit one by one, the Angel Gabriel
comes to Mary during a time of darkness for God’s people.
Between the Old Testament and the New Testament is a period of 450 years where the people
of God experienced complete silence from Heaven.
No prophets arose to speak God’s words.
There were no new revelations. No recorded moments of divine intervention.
I imagine that for many, it must have felt as though God had withdrawn completely.
I’m reminded of the 1966 Time Magazine cover, “Is God Dead?”
This question must have crossed the minds of the Jewish people during the time of Mary and
Elizabeth.
The people of Israel lived under Roman occupation and were surveilled closely by the military.
They had limited religious freedom. They were burdened by heavy taxes. Their own leaders
were often closely aligned with the Roman powers and practiced corruption and the oppression
of their own people.
Where was God in all of this? Had God abandoned God’s people?
And it was in this very place and time—when hope seemed faint and the silence from God was
deafening — that Jesus was born.
In our moments of waiting, when the world feels broken and God is silent, we too might wonder
if God has withdrawn.
But the stories of Mary and Elizabeth remind us that God often works in the dark - that God
almost always works in unexpected ways - and that God WILL break through the silence with
timing that is not ours and in ways that we could never imagine.
God sends the Angel Gabriel to the young woman Mary - a girl who has no social standing, no
wealth, no prominence.
Mary was in one of the most vulnerable situations that a person could be at that time - she was
young; she was not married; and she was a she.
Mary doesn’t come from a long line of priests or those who are part of the religious elite.
She lived in her hometown of Nazareth - a place where in the Gospel of John the prophet
Nathan remarks - Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?
Despite these things - the Angel tells Mary, “You are highly favored! God is with you.”
Now - I don’t know about you - but if I were Mary, a teenage, unmarried girl in a bleak cultural
moment from a disregarded town - and an Angel told me that and the Lord was with me - I
would be sure they had the wrong person.
It would be as if the angel went to a young girl in East Oakland or on the Southside of Chicago
or rural China or even Gaza.
God coming to a girl who was so insignificant by the world’s standards, so invisible - it tells us
that God does not measure worth the way the world does.
God doesn’t come to us based on how "perfect" we are by human standards.
The story of Mary stands on its head the popular myth that God is only with those who have
worldly success or perfect health or financial prosperity or those who feel morally superior. The
myth that God can only be with those who have no trauma and no dysfunction in their lives.
We see in this text, that God is with the broken-hearted, that God is present with those who are
struggling, that God’s love rests on those of us who are ordinary, and that God chooses those
who do not look “ready”.
This is the hope we carry as Christians: that God calls each of us, just as we are, to be part of
God’s unfolding story of love and redemption for all of Creation in Jesus Christ.
Mary’s initial response to the Angel is - understandably - confusion and fear. “How could the
Lord possibly be with me? What have I done to deserve such a greeting?” Who am I that the
Lord is mindful of me? The Psalmists’ words echo….
But Mary’s doubt doesn’t disqualify her.
In fact, it opens the door for God’s reassurance - Gabriel reminds Mary that it’s not about what
she has done or who she is in the world’s eyes. It’s about God’s presence with her and God’s
ability to work miracles through her.
The Angel tells Mary to not be afraid - that she will be the mother to the long-awaited Messiah.
“The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
We see here that it is God who does the work.
Just as Mary was chosen to bear the incarnate Love of God inside of her - God chooses us in
our ordinariness - with all of our imperfections and doubts - to be the bearers of God’s kindness
to all the world.
The Angel reminds Mary of the stories of her people—the promises spoken generations ago,
promises that were faded and tattered, growing more faint with every generation.
Through the Angel’s words, those ancient promises begin to come to life again:
"The Lord God will give your child the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s
descendants forever."
In that moment, the pieces of a much larger puzzle begin to take shape.
I imagine Mary’s mind flooded with the stories of her parents and her grandparents - tales told
around the fire and read aloud in the synagogues.
The story of Abraham, a man called by God to leave everything he knew with a promise that his
offspring would outnumber the stars. And his wife Sarah, a woman who bore the heaviness of
old age - having longed for a child and been barren for years. It was through their faith and
resilience, despite their doubts and laughter at God’s promise, that Isaac, the father of Jacob,
would be born.
And Mary would remember David, the youngest in his family, the least likely - the shepherd boy
turned king, to whom God made the promise: “Your house, your throne and your kingdom will
endure forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). Even through David’s failures and shortcomings, God’s
promises endured.
As Mary hears the angel’s message, she realizes that she, too, is part of God’s sacred story.
How important it is that we know and remember our stories?!
Mary’s response to this overwhelming news is one of surrender: “I am the Lord’s servant,” she
says. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”
Mary’s faith doesn’t erase her fear or her confusion.
After the Angel leaves, Mary rushes off to visit Elizabeth - to see about what the Angel told her.
She arrives to find Elizabeth visibly pregnant - just as the Angel said.
In this moment, we see the word of God confirmed and the beauty of shared faith.
Mary’s presence, causes the child that Elizabeth is carrying to jump inside of her womb -
Elizabeth becomes filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaims, “Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the child you will bear!”
And just as Mary’s visit strengthens Elizabeth - Elizabeth’s words affirm Mary’s calling and
encourage her.
This is a reminder that in our journeys of faith, we need one another.
God provides community and connection to strengthen us as we walk forward, often with
uncertainty and carrying the heavy things of life.
Mary's response to this whole situation is a song of praise—what we now call the Magnificat.
In the song, Mary magnifies the Lord for God’s greatness, God’s mercy, and God’s faithfulness.
Her song is a powerful declaration of trust in a God who lifts up the humble and the lowly.
It’s been called a revolutionary message of hope and justice, because of the way that it
challenges systems of power and oppression. At various times in the past, this song has been
banned in India, Argentina, and Guatemala. That it is spoken by a woman makes it even more
precious.
Mary’s vision is of a world turned upside down—a world where the proud are scattered, the
mighty are brought low, and the hungry are filled.
Her words remind us that God’s work is not done.
Advent reminds us that light breaks into the darkness, not all at once, but steadily and surely.
The birth of Christ is the beginning of a promise—a promise that God is with us, that the
brokenhearted will be comforted, the lowly will be lifted, and the hungry will be filled. And even
as we wait for the fulfillment of that promise, we are called to be part of its coming reality, right
here and now.
So as we near the time for the final candle to be lit and as the light grows brighter, let us carry
that light into a world that so desperately needs it.
May we reflect God’s love and kindness in our actions, trusting that even in the smallest
gestures, God is at work. For with God, the impossible becomes possible, and hope is never in
vain.
Amen.