Mary Sunday: Love for Gift and Sacred Sign
Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Today, Advent Four, the candle is for Mary Sunday and our holy story of Mary. On this final Sunday of Advent, as Christmas dawns, the church greets you in the Name of the Holy Family, and of God the Father, whose entire face toward humanity is the face and gift of love.
The love of God is the sole reason for the angel’s visit to Mary, and Mary’s visit to Elizabeth.
The love of God is the sole reason for the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Child of Bethlehem.
God’s love for us, that brings Jesus’ own commandment that we treat others lovingly, is the sole reason for the earthly ministry and New Commandment of Jesus.
God’s love for us - - no matter how cruelly we hate and abuse God the Son on the Cross of Calvary and in human life to this day - - God’s love for us is the sole reason for Easter, God’s resurrection of Jesus and sending him straight back to us from his third day in the tomb, bloody and scarred.
God’s love for us is the sole reason for the divine promise, from Jesus himself, that he will come again.
God’s love for us is the reason we can face life with its joys and sorrows, and death without fear.
Advent: he came because God loves you; Christ will come again because God loves you. There’s nothing complicated about it, nothing you have to do to qualify for God’s love. Christmas: love came down at Christmas because God loves you.
The faith of Jesus Christ is about love of God and Neighbor, and nothing else whatsoever, not about belief, institution, doctrine, dogma, liturgy, worship, confession, communion; not about personal holiness, religiosity, piety. Pantokrator, God whose creating Word ye-Hi explodes universes into being, is not obsessed with our paltry misfeasances that we call “sins”, if that's what you believe, your God is too small. The love of Christmas is not about Jesus covering and forgiving and paying the price for your sins - - sins that, no matter what they are, cannot even be SEEN in the brightness of the light of Christ.
From the very Beginning, God creating us in his likeness, in the image of God, of sheer love; in the Garden of Eden, God forming us from dust of the ground, and breathing into us his own breath, the breath of life, the sheer love of God.
The Christmas story, and all our holy stories, have no other meaning, sense, moral or gospel truth than that the One the Nicene Creed names as “Pantokrator, one God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen” singles us out to love.
Life Itself is the Love of God. Love Itself is the KINGDOM of God, and you step into the Kingdom because you want to; there is no price for admission, nothing you have to say or do to earn the love of God; nothing you do or fail to do will cause God to expel you. Yes, in baptism you commit to certain acts of love, but those are not the price of admission to God’s kingdom, they are our responses of gratitude for life and the love of God, not conditions of God’s loving you. And though you break every baptismal vow, God loves you nevertheless and notwithstanding.
Love is the gift of God as Advent phases into Christmas,
Love, as Christmas climaxes in Epiphany,
Love, as Epiphany darkens into Lent, and
Love, as Lent and Holy Week dawn in Easter.
Love comes down at Christmas: listen to Rossetti’s poem, our Christmas carol,
Love came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, Love divine;
Love was born at Christmas;
star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, Love divine;
worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith for sacred sign?
LOVE shall be our sacred sign;
love be yours and love be mine;
love to God and neighbor,
LOVE for gift and sacred sign.
This holy season,
May the love of God cover you.
May the love of God touch all who are near and dear to you, both in this life and the life to come.
May you be home for the holidays, not only in body this Christmas, but powerfully in your heart and mind, and in your memories of love in Christmases past.
And may God bless you with all the Love of Christmas - - in the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
+++++++++++
Sermon/homily by the Rev Tom Weller on 19 December 2021, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Mary Sunday, in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida. Gospel basis, the Luke chapter One story of the Angel's visit to Mary and Mary's visit to Elizabeth:
The Birth of Jesus Foretold (Luke 1:26-45,56)
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him
Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Mary Visits Elizabeth
39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
Poem, Christmas carol, Christina Rossetti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Came_Down_at_Christmas