December 18, 2011 - Advent 4

Luke 1: 1-17, 24, 25, 26-38, 39-48, 56, 57.
Luke 2: 1-7

Everyone is coming to our house for Christmas this year!
Well not everyone, but most of the clan.
Tasha and John are remaining in Egypt. Actually they will be on safari somewhere in Kenya, and ringing in the New Year in Zanzibar.
Anyway after ten years of Vicki and I trekking down to Ontario to celebrate Christmas most of my crew have decided to save us the long trip this year and come to us instead.
Noah and Ashleigh are coming with their two toy poodles. Which are bigger and fluffier than our two toy poodles.
My brother Bill is bringing our mother along with his two big dogs, who shed like old Christmas trees, to whom I just happen to be highly allergic.
Vicki’s Daughter Jeanne is flying in from California to stay over Christmas Eve.
Michelle and Xavier are coming for Christmas morning and brunch.
Zachary is showing up just after Christmas.
And then there is that "expecting thing" we can’t talk about yet.
Now we have a little house, a bungalow, with a half finished basement, with inadequate plumbing on a septic field. However we have a new central vac system, and a couple of old Ikea fold up cots. We do not have any kind of a dog kennel, but at least the back yard is now fully fenced.
Friends it is going to take a whole lot of love to get through this Christmas. Have you had a Family Christmas something like this: A Christmas that required a whole lot of love just to see it through?
On the forth Sunday of Advent, we embrace the mystery of the Christmas story that somehow Divine love has entered our human frame. Luke tells us a complicated story of extended family relations and questionable conceptions: A story of an overcrowded Inn, animals all around, and a whole lot of love.
I could go on about all the Jewish and Greek elements employed by Luke, all the Jewish and Greek ornaments arranged to present this mystery to Theophilus, a Greek magistrate.
I could go on about the two births in Luke, instead of just one birth in Matthew. How the Jewish liturgical calendar began with two birth stories, the birth of Isaac and the birth of Samuel.
I could go on about how John the Baptist’s birth, parallels Isaac’s birth. Both were born to old parents and hither to barren mothers. Both were the connecting generation: Isaac connecting Father Abraham to Jacob the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. John becomes the connecting link between the Old Testament prophets and the Messiah.
I could go on about the parallels between Mary and Hanna.
Mary’s Magnificat sounds for the world like Hanna’s song of praise when she is finally found to be with child. When the angel greets Mary with the phrase, "Greetings, O favoured one," literally "clothes in grace" this is the meaning of the name Hanna, who of course is the mother of Samuel. The child Samuel will be loaned and dedicated to the service of God just as Jesus’ life will be. Interesting eh?
I could go on about the specific Greek influences. Only the Greeks could have one too young to conceive, conceive, and not by human agent but by Divine fiat. The Greek pantheon was filled with outlandish births and divine/human biological co-mingling.
I could go on with all this exegesis but we would be no closer to the mystery. We would be too full of analysis and have no room for the mystery of Divine love.
We would be too full of explanation, and have no room for the mystery of Divine love to enter into our love.
But what’s more, our familiarity with these birth stories and our honouring of their outcomes can blind us to the disgrace each birth engendered. There was no room in ancient society for either birth.
Elizabeth hides herself away in the hill country. A woman in her 60s giving birth for the first time was unnatural, unholy. We see this attitude even today.
A child pregnancy is never viewed with joy. Not then. Not now. Rather, we suspect criminal activity at the very least. It’s a scandal no matter how it happened. Remember children where betrothed by their families around the age of eight long before any contact of any kind. But something happens in the normal six to eight year interim. Initially Joseph seeks a kind way out because the normal way usually involved the stoning of the girl, but then he boldly goes forth and marries her.
Both births, then, as now require a whole lot of love to work out.
Both births then and now require a whole lot of room for love to work out.
You see Divine love does not enter a busy, filled up, ever so certain, self-satisfied life.
There must be an inner space to welcome Divine love.
There must be an inner silence to listen for Divine love.
There must be an inner emptiness to embrace all the love that is needed for Christmas to happen.
There was no room at the busy Inn but room was found in a quiet stable.
There is no room in our busy secularization of Christmas but room is being found in thoughtful hearts.

The Application for Today:

Christmas always requires a whole lot of love to work out: Divine love and human love.
In each of our Christmas celebrations are we ready and willing to bring that love into the world this season?
Christmas requires a whole lot of love, for everything else there is Master Card.
Amen.

In the mystery of divine love entering into our love, lets remain seated and sing carol #47; Still, Still, Still.