Fourth Sunday of Advent
Sunday 20th December 2020
Although we have been able to resume public worship not everyone is able to attend so the service was recorded and made available online as well as being played in church for those who chose to attend. That can be found here.
Advent 4
2 Samuel 7.1–11,16
Luke 1.26–38
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
“Travelling with Mary”
After the first reading from 2 Samuel:
ecause today we are focussing on Mary, the God-bearer, the mother of our Lord, I thought we might think on the journeys that Mary undertakes – real and metaphorical and how they might correspond to our own journeys.
Of course, in lockdown – or Tier 3- we haven’t been able to undertake many journeys this year! Not many of us have had the holidays or exotic travel we might have planned!
But before we get onto that, let’s just think about that reading from the second book of Samuel that Dave just gave us… (and as Chairman of our Fabric Committee, I am pleased he twigged my reasoning in suggesting that he might like to give us a reading all about the building [or not building!] of God’s house.)
David is concerned that – while he now has a stable home – a fixed base from which to rule, God – to whom he owes everything – has no permanent home. God is still sharing the nomadic existence and experience of his people. David’s motives are good, but God is not yet ready to tie himself down to just one place… maybe too the land – and therefore the nation – is not yet as secure as God intends it to be. So while David is free to enjoy his palace of cedarwood – and God repeats his promise, his covenant with David – that his descendants shall occupy the throne well into the future, God needs to be free to move among his people and for them to feel that he is always with them – not shut away in some Temple building.
It would in fact take many hundreds of years before God was ready to take his place once and for all among humanity and to do so in such a definitive way, that nothing would ever be the same again…
After the reading from the St Luke’s Gospel:
Wow! What a shock for a young girl – probably around the age of Milly, or not much older, to receive! And the news the angel brought would mean her taking several journeys, both real and in her understanding of God’s purposes.
The first journey would be up into the hill country to visit cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah. And there she would be recognised as the future mother of the Lord by Elizabeth… I doubt anything could have prepared either woman for the joy, excitement and terror they must both have been feeling!
And then there is that journey with Joseph to Bethlehem in the final month of her pregnancy… that can’t have been much fun!
Thankfully she had some time to rest and recover from the birth – it is likely that she and Joseph stayed on for some time with the new baby. He was, after all, visiting relatives in Bethlehem and no doubt there were plenty of people to offer advice to a brand new and inexperienced mother! And there was the short journey to Jerusalem to give thanks for the child at the Temple. Such a strange experience having those two old people prophesying over the tiny baby in her arms. That must have got her mind racing over what the future might hold for her son.
But before long there was the flight into exile in a foreign land to escape the risk of Herod’s murderous intentions. Mary had then to become a refugee in Egypt for a year or two until it was safe for them to make it back to Nazareth.
And her child would lead her on many more journeys – what about the one when he was 12 – on the threshold of manhood in Jewish tradition. When she and Joseph took him to Jerusalem for one of the great religious festivals, only to discover that he had gone missing as they made their way home.
Thankfully they found him on that occasion, but Mary soon recognized that Jesus would never be just her son. She had to learn to share him with the whole world.
And eventually she had – along with all his followers, – to follow him to the cross. To witness his death – something no mother should ever have to do. That was a particularly hard journey. And I am sure the words of Simeon in the Temple came flooding back to her…
But she was not alone – there were his friends and followers and they stuck together and looked after her. And then came the day when she experienced the astonishing, amazing, wonderful reality of his resurrection – only to find that he was going on yet another journey as he ascended to heaven – returning to God… a journey on which she would eventually join him when her time came.
Legend has it that she later journeyed to Turkey, to Ephesus and lived there, but I cannot be sure about that one.
I do know however that all her travels began with that decision of a young girl to say “Yes” – to give her consent freely to the Divine Purpose that was before her.
And each of us has a journey through life that we must make. We will not always find companions on the way – although most of us will have others with us at least some of the time. But each of us can make a decision to allow God into our lives; to direct our feet on the path; to say, along with Mary, “be it unto me according to your will.”
This Christmas, try to believe that God has come to earth for your sake, to invite you on a journey, to persuade you that God is with you every minute of the day, and loves you more than anyone else could love. Then – even with the constraints of this year – you really will have a happy Christmas!