4 Advent

Dec. 20, 2020

 

Luke 1.26-38

 

+ As you all know, I am a pretty solid and very proud old-fashioned liberal  Christian.

 

It’s just a part of who I am.

 

And I love being a liberal-minded Christian.

 

I am very unapologetic about it.

 

But in addition to that, I am also an Anglo-Catholic.

 

And I can tell you this: the specifically Anglo-Catholic expression of my liberal Christian faith has been a very sustaining force in my life.

 

It has help me through some particularly hard times.

 

Now, I know for some people here at St. Stephen’s, these beliefs and practices have been…well…at times a bit frustrating.

 

For many others, it has been a relief knowing that Christianity like this can still be lived out.

 

But for the most part, everyone has been supportive.

 

And, as we know, as St. Stephen’s has leaned more and more Anglo-Catholic over these last 12 years, we have been in the unique position of attracting many former Roman Catholics to our parish.

 

And we get to claim the unique claim that we are the only really Anglo-Catholic parish in several hundred miles.

 

We proudly hold that distinction closely.

 

Of course, we were not always that kind of a parish.

 

Former Senior Warden Steve Bolduc once told me a story about how many years ago, long before I came here, there was a regional meeting at St. Stephen’s.

 

One of the priests of the diocese was overheard to say: “aww, St. Stephen’s. A parish so low it should be called MR. Stephen’s.”

 

Well, we ain’t that parish anymore!

 

All you have to do to realize that is either just take a look around here now, or step in the door and take a deep whiff of the lingering incense.

 

You know that I went to a somewhat conservative seminary, Nashotah House.

 

It was kind of a good thing for me.

 

I learned a lot there.

 

I also learned some interesting liturgical practices at that seminary.

 

At Nashotah House something happened three times every single day.

 

Three times every single day the big bell in the bell tower—named Michael—would chime, once in the morning before Morning Prayer, once at noon and once in the evening before Morning Prayer.

 

Whatever one was doing at that moment, they were expected to pause and quietly pray as the bell chimed.

 

The traditionally thing to do was to pray the Angelus as the bell rung.

 

The Angelus consists of three Hail Mary’s—the prayer based, yet again, on our Gospel reading from today—interspersed with vesicles also from our Gospel reading today. It begins with:

 

V. + The angel of the Lord announced unto Mary.

R. And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.

 

Say the Hail Mary

 

V. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.

R. Be it unto me according to  thy Word.

 

Another Hail Mary

 

V. And the Word was made flesh .

R. And dwelt among us.

 

Another Hail Mary

Then we would say:

 

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

 

Then it ends with a wonderful collect that summarizes the Incarnation of Jesus for us:

 

Pour thy grace into our hearts, O Lord, that as we who have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ announced an angel to the Virgin Mary, may, by his cross + and passion, be brought to the glory of his resurrection; through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

The Angelus has a long tradition in the church.

 

No doubt you’ve seen the very famous painting called “The Angelus” by Jean-Francois Millet of the farmers pausing in the midst of their field work to bow their heads in prayer as they hear the Angelus bell from the church in the nearby village.

 

Now this practice of praying that Angelus has stuck with me.

 

I don’t pray it three times a day anymore, sadly.

 

But I do pray it every morning when I wake up, and, if I’m not too exhausted, I pray it each night before I go to bed.

 

I deeply love the Angelus, because in a very real, it is a theological microcosm of what we will be celebrating this coming week. 

 

And it is an important week on which we are about to embark.

 

Today, of course, is the last Sunday of Advent.

 

We will put away the Sarum blue for another year after our Wednesday night Mass this week.

 

 The big Day—Christmas—is now almost agonizingly close.

 

On the surface level, we, hopefully, are as prepared as we can be.

 

Presents are hopefully bought.

 

Cards have been sent.

 

Menus have been prepared.

 

I hope you’re planning on being safe and not planning huge gatherings.

 

It’s going to be a very different Christmas that any we have ever celebrated before, with so many of us still separated by the pandemic.

 

But spiritually, where are we prepared?

 

This time of Advent was a time for us to prepare ourselves spiritually for this glorious event.

 

Has it been worthwhile?

 

Are we prepared spiritually for this big day that is about to dawn?

 

The truly honest answer to that question can only be another question: are we ever truly prepared?

 

Or maybe even more honest would be the question: what exactly are we preparing ourselves for?

 

The answer to the first question finds its answer in the second question.

 

What are we preparing ourselves for?

 

What do we believe about this day that is about to dawn upon us?

 

Do we believe it is just another holiday full of trinkets and caroling?

 

Or do we believe that this Day is an awesome Day—a Day in which, truly God draws near to us.

 

And not just that! That God comes to us, is here with us!

 

And there, I think, is the gist of it all.

 

This day we celebrate this coming week is not some sweet, gentle little holiday, just involving a smiling, bright-faced baby in a barn.

 

Not for us, anyway, who called ourselves Christians.

 

This day is about God coming to us.

 

God, in the form of this baby.

 

That is what we are hearing about in today’s Gospel reading with the Angel Gabriel coming to Mary and that is what we are celebrating this coming week in the birth of Jesus.

 

In the Gospel reading, we are looking back roughly nine months from now.

 

We are looking back to that moment when God came to us, when God moved—and it all happened because Mary said “yes” to the Angel.

 

Incarnation—God with us and among us—is at the heart of what we as Christians believe.

 

For us, Jesus isn’t just some nice teacher like the Buddha.

 

(and to be clear, I greatly respect the Buddha)

 

But Jesus isn’t like the Buddha or any other great teacher.

 

For us, in Jesus we know God has come to us.

 

It is the defining belief among us.

 

 It is what makes us different than our Jewish brothers and sisters.

 

Yes, we believe in the same God.

 

But we believe that the Son and Chosen One of this same God has taken on human flesh and come among us.

 

It is also what makes us different than our Muslim brothers and sisters.

 

Again, we believe in the same God.

 

Yes, they revere Jesus as a great prophet and Mary as a truly holy servant of God, but they cannot quite accept the fact that God would come and dwell in the flesh in a human being, that God would have a child.

 

We, as Christians, do believe this.

 

We profess it every week in our Creed.

 

We celebrate it in our scripture readings.

 

And we partake of this belief in a very tangible way at the altar when we share Holy Eucharist with each other—either in person or spiritually.

 

And certainly it also a major part of our outreach and ministry.

 

Because God has come to us in Jesus, we now see God present in those we serve.

Every person—no matter who or what they are—is holy and special because of this event, this Incarnation.

 

And we can even see God present in own selves.

 

Everything we do as Christians proclaims the fact we believe that, in Jesus, God has come among us.

 

The fact is, most of us probably haven’t given this whole idea of God-with-us a whole lot of thought.

 

Even the early Christians struggled with this belief and defined it in various ways.

 

For us, though, as Episcopalians, we do believe in this remarkable fact.

 

And we celebrate it at every opportunity we can.

 

Certainly every Sunday we celebrate it—here at the altar.

 

Our Eucharist is a remembrance of the fact that, yes, God continues to come to us, in this bread and this wine.  

 

In Jesus, we know that God is present with us.  

 

In Jesus, God has encompassed everything we longed for and hoped in.

 

In Jesus, we know that our God is not just some vague and distant being “out there” somewhere.

 

In Jesus, we know that God is right here, with us.

 

In Jesus, we find God breaking through to us.

 

In Jesus, God has come among us and dwells among us as one of us.

 

And although many of us are still resisting it, those of us who recognize it and see it, realize that God has truly broken through to us.

 

It’s all, of course, a mystery.

 

It is beyond our understanding and our rational thought that God could do this.

 

But at the same time, for those of us who have faith in God, we can just easily ask the question: why not?

 

Why couldn’t God do just this?

 

Why couldn’t God come among us and dwell with us?

 

Why couldn’t God send us this Child, this one in which God’s Light dwells?    

 

Certainly this is the reality we face this coming Thursday night and Friday.

 

For those of us who have been preparing ourselves spiritually for this day, this is what we are forced to examine and face.

 

Our faith might not be quite at that point that we believe all of it.

 

But what our faith does tell us is that, whatever happens on that day, it is God breaking through to us in some wonderful and mysterious way.

 

And all we have to do is not be stubborn or close-minded and cold-hearted.

 

Rather, all we have to do is be open to that breaking through to us.

 

The Word was made flesh.

 

And dwelt among us.

 

Our response to that Word should be the words of Mary when this incredible mystery descended upon her.

 

Let it be with me according to your word.

 

God has broken through to us.

 

Let us meet God at that point of breakthrough rejoicing.

 

And let us come away from that breaking through to us with God’s Word being proclaimed in our own voice.

 

Let us pray.

 

+ The Angel of the Lord did announce to Mary. And she did conceive by the power the Holy Spirit. Let us behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to us, O Lord, according to you Word. For the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

Pour your grace in our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus, which was announced by the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, whom you have blessed for all generations, may by his Cross +  and Passion, be brought to the glory of his resurrection, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.