“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” –Luke 1:38
In some ways, it’s odd to return to a gospel reading we read nearly nine months ago, when we celebrated the Annunciation. But that’s where our gospel has us this morning: on the cusp of something new.
These days it can seem like we’re constantly looking for the next big thing. The newest iPhone or the newest car. A new job or a new school. As human beings, it’s almost like we’re wired to look for what comes next. As Christians, we’ve spent Advent doing just that—looking for the coming of the kingdom of God.
That’s what our gospel starts to give us. An angel sent, not to Rome, but to a small town in the Middle East. A woman starting the revolution, not by rousing her kinsmen to arms, but by accepting, embracing, and nourishing in her body the Word of the Lord—a child conceived, not of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God.
We’ve spent Advent looking for what is to come, imagining Christ’s coming in power and great glory, imagining God making all things new, not just in our hearts and minds but in the world around us, in a way visible to all peoples.
This morning before Christmas, we turn back the clock to the nine months that have passed and live them out in the nine hours between our services this morning and our services tonight (a short pregnancy indeed!). We go back to the Annunciation—to God’s unexpected entry into human history and to Mary’s courageous response—and we find that God has already come to us. God is already making all things new, sometimes in ways that others around us can see, sometimes in ways that only we can perceive in our hearts, sometimes even in ways that only God can know.
We are on the cusp of something new, if only we learn to have the eyes to see it and ears to hear it—if only we have the wisdom to join Mary in her reply: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Post by Armando Ghinaglia
In some ways, it’s odd to return to a gospel reading we read nearly nine months ago, when we celebrated the Annunciation. But that’s where our gospel has us this morning: on the cusp of something new.
These days it can seem like we’re constantly looking for the next big thing. The newest iPhone or the newest car. A new job or a new school. As human beings, it’s almost like we’re wired to look for what comes next. As Christians, we’ve spent Advent doing just that—looking for the coming of the kingdom of God.
That’s what our gospel starts to give us. An angel sent, not to Rome, but to a small town in the Middle East. A woman starting the revolution, not by rousing her kinsmen to arms, but by accepting, embracing, and nourishing in her body the Word of the Lord—a child conceived, not of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God.
We’ve spent Advent looking for what is to come, imagining Christ’s coming in power and great glory, imagining God making all things new, not just in our hearts and minds but in the world around us, in a way visible to all peoples.
This morning before Christmas, we turn back the clock to the nine months that have passed and live them out in the nine hours between our services this morning and our services tonight (a short pregnancy indeed!). We go back to the Annunciation—to God’s unexpected entry into human history and to Mary’s courageous response—and we find that God has already come to us. God is already making all things new, sometimes in ways that others around us can see, sometimes in ways that only we can perceive in our hearts, sometimes even in ways that only God can know.
We are on the cusp of something new, if only we learn to have the eyes to see it and ears to hear it—if only we have the wisdom to join Mary in her reply: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Post by Armando Ghinaglia
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Photo labeled for reuse with modification from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Henry_Ossawa_Tanner_-_The_Annunciation.jpg
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