ADVENT SUNDAY IV “B”
DECEMBER 20/21, 2008
Recently I did a little Christmas shopping online. Completing my order I checked myself out of the online store. Simultaneously on my screen appeared the following message and an accompanying graphic: “Congratulations! You are the 999,999,999th visitor to this website! To claim your prize press “Accept.” I pressed “Delete” and went back to work. (I wonder, though, what the prize was for the one billionth customer?) I thought of this experience as I meditated on today’s scriptures. It brings home three important points.
First, life has many “annunciation” moments. Today’s first reading from the second book of Samuel has King David announcing his intention to build God a fitting dwelling, a temple in Jerusalem, certainly a worthy venture. In response God through the prophet Nathan has an annunciation for David. While temples and church buildings serve a good purpose in reminding us of God’s abiding presence with us and are an expression of our devotion to God, providing a physical place to gather in worship, the temptation of a building is to “box God in” to confine the divine to a particular place, the “keep God in church but out of politics” argument. God, Nathan tells David, will not be confined. God wishes first of all to be found dwelling within the lives of believers. In the Gospel Mary experiences the ultimate annunciation as the Archangel Gabriel tells her that from her own flesh and blood, God himself will take on our humanity.
Second, annunciations happen not outside the routines of daily life, but within them. King David was occupied with running the affairs of state when he received the Prophet Nathan’s message from God. And while most artists depict today’s gospel scene with Mary serenely engaged in prayer, I like to think that very likely she was doing house or yard work, or if she were here today, perhaps sitting at her desk at the office working on the computer. In choosing to dwell with us, God chooses to come to us as we are and where we are right now. God does not wait to break into our lives until we have reached what we define as the perfection of holiness in our lives. David, for example, was the youngest, least qualified son of Jesse when God chose him to be king. And even though God promises David a dynasty that will endure through the ages, there are no assurances that either David or his successors would thereby be without sin. A close reading of David’s life, let alone that of succeeding kings of Israel, bears testimony to this fact. Yet, through it all, God’s choice remained. Mary was an ordinary young woman making wedding plans in an insignificant little town in Galilee when she was asked to take on a seemingly impossible role. It’s precisely in the ordinariness of daily life that God wishes to make his dwelling, to be Emmanuel, “God with us.”
Third, annunciations demand response. Mary’s yes is pure. Mary’s yes is not compromised by “but” or “if” or “what happens when…” Mary, being truly innocent and without sin, did not entertain cynicism even when historical circumstances made it difficult to see how God could fulfill his age-old promise of an eternal King and Savior. Mary does not focus on darkness and nothingness and impossibility, which leads to despair and to no! Her only focus is the light and love and limitless impossibility that embrace her. This leads her to yes! A yes which becomes pregnant with being and bears eternal fruit. God proposes, Mary says yes, and Christ is present.
Congratulations! Through God’s grace we have now been chosen through the Holy Spirit to give birth to Christ in the Spirit today.
“Accept” or “Delete”.