The Fourth Sunday of Advent | December 22, AD 2024 | Luke 1:39-45 (46-56) | Andrew F. Weisner |

Micah 5:2-5a
² But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. ³ Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. ⁴ And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; ⁵ and he shall be the one of peace. If the Assyrians come into our land and tread upon our soil, we will raise against them seven shepherds and eight installed as rulers.

Psalm 80:1-7
¹ Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth ² before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might, and come to save us! ³ Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved. ⁴ O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? ⁵ You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure. ⁶ You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves. ⁷ Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

Hebrews 10:5-10
⁵ Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; ⁶ in burnt-offerings and sin-offerings you have taken no pleasure. ⁷ Then I said, “See, God, I have come to do your will, O God” (in the scroll of the book it is written of me).’ ⁸When he said above, ‘You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt-offerings and sin-offerings’ (these are offered according to the law), ⁹ then he added, ‘See, I have come to do your will.’ He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰ And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Luke 1:39-45 (46-56)
³⁹ In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰ where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴² and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³ And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴ For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’ ⁴⁶And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸ for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰ His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵² He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵ according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.’ ⁵⁶Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

Homily

The story of a beautiful divine drama is (again) unfolding before us, and has been for a few weeks. The main character – who we usually hear about in gospel readings week-after-week – has not yet arrived on the stage. In the past few weeks we have heard about one of the main „supporting actors“: John, the herald, the prophet, the forerunner, the baptizer. In this week’s gospel reading, as we listen to today’s episode in our continuing drama, the focus is on one of the other most important supporting roles in the Advent / Christmas story; indeed, as some describe it (and quite accurately) as THE most important “supporting role” in all of creation’s story.

Today’s installment focuses on the main character’s mother (who is, indeed, the mother of the story’s author), the mother named Mary.

Here are a few quotes about her, about her importance in the story…

Quote: “The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart.”

Here’s another one: “She is the highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ… She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough.”

And here’s a third quote and accolade: “Mary is the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of all of us, even though it was Christ who reposed on her knees. [Since] Christ is ours, …there, where he is, we are also, and all that he has [is] ours; so his mother is also our mother.”

Those quotes are not from St. Pope John Paul II (of recent memory), who was known for his devotion to Christ’s mother; nor are they from Bernard of Clairvaux, the 11^th century saint who was well known for his praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary. These three quotes are from none other than Martin Luther, our 16^th century reformer, after whom this, and so many other congregations, are named.

Several years ago I received a research grant that allowed me to live in Germany for a summer, during which time I visited the library archives in the city of Jena. There, in those archives, I saw choir books actually used by monks and students at Wittenberg University in the early 1500s – where and when Martin Luther was a professor and where the Lutheran Reformation started. These books continued to be used for worship services throughout the 1520s. In these choir books, there were musical settings appointed for music to be sung for the daily worship services for August 15, September 8, and December 8. WHO was commemorated in worship services in Wittenberg – the center, the very heart, of the Lutheran Reformation – on those three days? Jesus’ mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Martin Luther, our forefather in the faith, himself, held throughout his life a very special devotion to Jesus’ mother. He did not put her in the place of Christ, as he wrote in 1521: “One should honor Mary as she herself wished and as she expressed it in the Magnificat” (i.e., the long passage recited by her that we heard today from Luke’s gospel). Luther continues: “[Mary] praised God for his deeds. How, then, can we praise her? The true honor of Mary is to honor God, the praise of God’s grace… Mary is nothing for the sake of herself, but for the sake of Christ. …Mary does not wish that we come to her, but throughher, to God,” writes Luther. And this, actually, is the position held by our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters.

Among other reasons, there are at least two for Martin Luther’s great appreciation for and devotion to Mary, our Lord’s mother. Here, for example:

Some years ago a member of my church had a sign on his basement workbench that stated, “The best way for a father to love his children – is to love their mother.” It is true also among us: to love and honor a mother is to love and honor her children; and likewise, to love and honor children is to love their mother. Any community in which mothers and children are honored is going to be – according to God’svalues – a strong, loving community. Now that’s just a plain truth. Thus, the Church actually includes on its calendar certain days, and certain scripture readings, to remember and bring attention to a particular mother among all mothers, Jesus’ Mother, Mary.

Now, there is also theological reason for bringing attention to our Lord’s mother, precisely in order to say: God had a mother. Now – yes, that may sound odd and strange, but, to not say it, is to deny precisely what we celebrate at Christmas and recite in the Creeds: that is, that God, the almighty, became incarnate, took flesh; God, “the Word,” as St. John writes in chapter 1 of his gospel, became flesh and dwelled among us. Or, as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his Second Letter, chapter 3: “the face of God is Jesus.” And this man, Jesus from Nazareth, who was, who is, as we read in St. Matthew’s gospel (1:23), “God with us;” this man – God with us – had a mother, named Mary.

And, have you ever stopped to think about these things? Since Jesus had, genetically, no male influence, but was conceived in Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, where did the color of his eyes come from? From Mary. Where did he get the shape of his face, the contour of his cheek bones, and the color of his hair? From Mary. The very blood that flowed in the body of Jesus Christ, our savior, had come from herbody.

God, the almighty, the creator of all that is, values humanity. God values even our bodies; God created and values embodiment. So much so that he assumes it – takes it up for himself – by having, like us, a human mother.

And just as God values our human bodies, he also values human things – such as bread and wine, such that, just as God, the Word, took flesh in the body of Mary, so the Word of God comes to and becomes embodied in bread and wine, when he says, “Take and eat, take and drink: this is my body and blood, given and shed for you.” And then, he takes flesh in OUR bodies, so that we become the presence of Christ in the world. When we, in the Blessed Sacrament, receive Christ into ourselves, we, in a sense, take on the very role of Jesus’ Mother: we carry in our bodies, Jesus Christ; and as we are God’s servants, ministers, to do good for others, we, like the Blessed Mother, bear Christ into the world. And then we may say and sing with her: “the Almighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”

That he work in us, and through us, we pray our Advent prayer: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

Pastor Andrew F. Weisner, Ph.D.
pastorweisner@gmail.com
Pastor, New Covenant Lutheran Church
Morganton, North Carolina, USA
Faculty, North American Lutheran Seminary, Ambridge, PA, USA