2 Samuel 7: 1-11, 16
NPMC
Luke 1: 26-38
4 Advent
Romans 16: 25-27
December 21, 2008
Luke 1: 46-55
Anita Retzlaff
Mary’s Song: To kiss the face of God
Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus the
Christ. In our moment of silent prayer on this fourth Sunday of Advent we pray
for those whom we know who feel far off from God, separated and removed. This
may be us at times or those we love who we wish would come to know the comfort
and companionship of the Holy Spirit - especially in this season. On this
darkest day of the year let us pray for the light to dawn in empty places, in
the cracks of our lives. Let us pray.
O God, giver of light and life, hear our prayers for those who do not find their
rest in you. May we be instruments by which others come to know your goodness.
AMEN
There is a folksy Christmas song that I have heard in several different venues
this advent. In it is an image that is mind-blowing; exhilarating if you dare to
imagine the implications of the words. The song is “Mary did you know?” A few
lines from it:
Mary did you know that your baby
boy would someday walk on water
Mary did you know that your baby boy
would save our sons and daughters
Did you know that your baby boy
has come to make you new
This child that you’ve delivered will soon deliver you
Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod
When you’ve kissed your little baby, you’ve kissed the face of God.
“When you’ve kissed your little baby, you’ve kissed the face of God.” When I
ponder the depths of that image it leaves me breathless. Can God really be so
intimate? Is it possible that God meets humanity skin to skin? Can an ordinary
human get this close to the Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth? Mary
thinks so. Mary believes that God comes so close.
This is the Spirit of Good News that brings life into the perilous situation in
which we find ourselves today. These are dire times, not so much because we are
losing money in our investment portfolios and may have to reduce our
discretionary spending, though these things are an important and immediate
challenge. They are serious. We live in dire straits today not because we see
collapsing around us our hopes that the world would provide for us now and for
everyone eventually a high level of affluence, safety and contentment. Rather,
we face dire circumstances this very day because we live in a public state of
despair harbouring the pervasive feeling that hope does not exist.
Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament theologian and committed man of the church,
describes our situation in a very dynamic way. The quotation that I am about to
share comes from his book, “The Word that Redescribes the World.” The title
alone should alert us to the point he makes - that the bible, the Word of God,
“sees” life differently than do our societies around the world. Listen to his
words and you will see how each one of us succumbs to the grip of despair from
time to time.
I need use little energy arguing that the dominant text of our culture is a
practice of despair. A closed, settled world of reasonableness requires that
there are no new gifts to be given, and there is no Giver who might give gifts.
There is nothing more than management and distribution of what is already there,
distribution and redistribution, wars about distribution of land and oil and
water, no more gifts. Everything is limited and scarce, to be guarded and kept,
to be confiscated and seized. It is so in the public domain of economics, not
less so in the intimate world of human transactions and emotional need – not
enough of love, a shortage of forgiveness, and finally a deprivation of grace in
this age and in the age to come. (p. 13)
I think this very accurately sums up our sense of helplessness in the face of
massive systems over which we have no control, systems that seem to dictate to
us that we must hoard everything we can because life is a famine of scarcity.
This is a very negative script of our lives and I know that none of us lives
with it all the time but I think all of us live in its shadow some of the time.
Now let us counter this rather hopeless scenario with the blessings of our text
from scripture this morning. The Song of Mary is probably an ancient poem that
comes from the time of the Maccabean Wars. The Maccabean Wars were a concerted
resistance of the Jews against Syrian occupation and oppression. Antiochus
Epiphanes, a brutal dictator, proclaiming himself divine pronounced edicts that
profaned the practices of the Jews, including the desecration of the temple in
Jerusalem. So when we hear the words of proclamation uttered from the mouth of
Mary describing a counter reality to Antiochus’ brutality and posturing we have
a tremendous word of hope in horribly desperate circumstances. Should we not
then, find these words trustworthy too?
For here is our great comfort and the amazing grace of God in the world. From
the testimony of one ordinary young woman the despair of all times and places is
cast aside and we see how God is prepared to meet us skin to skin. Mary prays,
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he
has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant… the Mighty One has done
great things for me and holy is his name.” Mary receives God; she is open to
God’s coming. Mary believes that God’s ways are different from the powerful and
brutal Antiochuses of this world, those who proclaim themselves invincible and
beyond reach of normal community accountability. Mary expects something from
God. She stakes her life on it.
We on the other hand, will most likely throw our hats in with those who promise
us wealth, health and safe travel in a world that has lied to itself about
universal prosperity and peace on earth, good will to all babies born around the
world this very moment. If we don’t, like Mary, attach our hopes to the star of
Christ’s coming we will be doomed to live a lie and to live with great anxiety
for much of the time we have on this earth. God came, in the birth of a baby, to
remind us of this. God’s compassion is for the lowly, the poor, for us in our
incompleteness. God is not separated from suffering but enters into it and as
such turns everything on its head. As the scripture says, with God, the proud
are scattered in the thoughts of their hearts, the powerful are brought down
from their thrones of invincibility, the downcast are raised up and the hungry
are fed. This is the radical hope for our world; that someday there will be
peace, that all will be fed, that everyone will have a place to call home. If we
abandon this dream, all we are left with is a hopeless account of the world and
us in it; that all is limited, that there will never be enough and as a result,
all is lost. We might as well just give up.
No, no! We have kissed the face of God! Mary did! We do! That is the gift of
Christmas. We open ourselves to the possibility that God touches our lives. The
story of the nativity is one story of how God works, what God does. God’s ways
are intimate, immediate, often unexpected and wildly freeing. God in our lives
is like a passionate love relationship – come on, you remember what that is like
– exhilarating, full of surprises, heart thumping, energizing, life-giving. That
is who God is to us: the One who gives gifts, who gives us Christ as a warm,
soft baby who will one day suffer. Skin to skin God has met humanity. Heart to
heart God meets us. It is not a gift that is always happy. It is a gift that
plumbs the depths with us and bears us up under considerable weight. The gift of
Christ and the many other gifts we receive from the hand and the heart of God is
a gift that accompanies us through all things. God’s presence in us is alive,
life-giving and real.
Are we open to meeting God skin to skin? Do we believe that we have kissed the
face of God? Do you know that you have been gathered up into the presence of the
One who breathed life into all creation? Mary did. That is the way God works;
through the lives of those who are open to being made new, who are willing to
take the risks that love requires.
I will dare to say on behalf of us all that we are filled with expectation,
though we are often disappointed, that we have vivid imaginations as to what God
can do in our lives and in our world but are often too timid to admit these
hopes. I will dare to say on behalf of us all that we are open to the new gifts
that God brings: that we do believe that there is a Giver of gifts. We will not
confine out ultimate hope to funeral services but gladly articulate today, our
hope on this fourth advent Sunday, that in the birth of a baby we have seen the
heart of God and that indeed God rules the world. Yes, we are open to the
possibility of peace on earth and we will try to do our part, in hope, in prayer
and in mutual kindness.
We are open to the unexpected, to divine possibilities. Mary shows us how it
once happened: when she kissed her little baby, she kissed the face of God. We
are filled with expectation in this season of Christ’s coming for we believe,
along with Mary, that God has done great things for us and that God’s promises
remain real and fruitful in the world. We rejoice this day in God our Saviour.
Thanks be to God! AMEN