Readings for the day (4th Sunday of Advent – Sunday, December 20, 2015):
Dear friends in Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Amen.
As we enter this week of Christmas, our scripture texts turn to focusing on Mary, the mother of our Lord. Mary and Elizabeth, both are expecting a child – one, way beyond the normal age of bearing children, and the other extremely young for bearing children. Elizabeth had been waiting and hoping for this to come for years. While Mary had been waiting and hoping for anything but this to come. And yet, God takes these two ordinary women, places them in extraordinary circumstances, and says, “I’m going to use you and your children to build up my kingdom.” God took Elizabeth, someone who was judged and criticized in the community for her inability to bear children, and not only restored her to the community, but gave her a very important role – the mother of John the Baptist, the messenger who was called to prepare the way for the Savior of the world to come. And God took Mary, someone who would be judged, criticized and probably even stoned to death by the community for bearing a child at the young age of 13 or 14 without being married, and God not only helped her see beyond the community’s opinion, but gave her the very important role of being the mother of God’s only Son.
Elizabeth and Mary, both had hopes of what the future would hold, but for both of these women, their future ended up turning into something far greater than what they had hoped for. In Elizabeth’s old age, she probably just hoped for the child to be healthy. In Mary’s young age, she probably just hoped for the strength and perseverance to carry this child. What they had hoped for certainly came true, but God also far exceeded their expectations.
So what is it that you hope for? Do you hope that the weather will remain nice so that your family can come home for Christmas? Do you hope that maybe this year there won’t be a big argument that arises when your family gets together? Do you hope that there will be some sort of miracle this year and the Vikings will actually not choke as the season comes to a close? Do you hope that somehow 2016 is going to be better than 2015? What is it that you hope for?
Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen the way you want it to happen. We hope for lots of things don’t we? As we meet a police car going a little over the speed limit, we hope that we don’t see the tail lights come on. When the pastor gets in the pulpit, we hope that the sermon isn’t going to be super long or boring. When the roads are slippery and the visibly is less than ideal, we hope that our tires stay on the road. When we watch our loved ones drive off, we hope that they will make it safely to their destination. When we see the doctor for tests, we hope that the results don’t come with the word cancer in them. When we keep seeing expenses rise, we hope that our church can stay open for yet another year of ministry. When we see the letter from our insurance company, we hope that our premiums aren’t going up very much.
But those premiums did go up…a lot, didn’t they? Sometimes the word cancer does come up in our conversations with our doctor. And a Super Bowl win for the Vikings will more than likely have to wait yet another year. What we hope for doesn’t always happen in the way we desire it to happen. Complications happen. Sin happens. Life happens. And when life turns out differently than what we hoped it would, we are left feeling discouraged, frustrated, a failure. We hoped for better news. We hoped for better attendance. We hoped for a more positive outcome. Elizabeth hoped that this pregnancy would have happened a couple decades earlier. Mary hoped that this pregnancy would have come a few years later.
We don’t always get what we want, but God gives us hope. Hope that is described beautifully in the magnificat, the song that Mary sings after visiting Elizabeth. Mary says that through her Son, Jesus, God will scatter the proud. He will bring down the powerful from their thrones. He will lift up the lowly. He will fill the hungry with good things. He will send the rich away empty. He will help his servants according to the promises that he has made.
This is what we hope for in this Christmas season. Don’t you hope that one day pride will no longer rule over us? Or that one day the rich and powerful will no longer reign on high in our government, in the financial, business or agricultural industries. When Christ comes back, the lowly will be lifted up. The hungry will be filled with good things. We hunger for a world that isn’t so obsessed with political correctness. We hunger for a world that doesn’t have to live in fear of each other. We hunger for a world that won’t solely focus inwardly on themselves. What we hunger for is what we hope for. And what we really hope for is life without sin. A life without temptations and distractions. But when our hopes continually fail us, it becomes hard to trust, hard to believe, hard to remain hopeful.
But look at that magnificat again. “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.” God has already done this through Christ. God Almighty himself, came down from his powerful throne on high to be with us; to be one of us. And he came in the lowliest way possible; being born an infant with no place for him to lay his head except the straw in the middle of a barn. Some place for our Almighty God. Not the first place you would think of for a powerful ruler or king to be born. And yet, this is what our God has done, for you! He came down from his powerful throne in order to be lifted up on a tree and sacrificed for the sins of all.
There are many things that we hope for, some come true and others don’t turn out the way we wanted. But even if things don’t happen just the way we desire them to go, doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love you any less or that He has forgotten you. So we continue to have hope in our crucified and risen Lord, that what He has promised will indeed happen – that we too will be lifted up, and he will fill us with good things; namely his forgiveness, his love, and his mercy. Amen.
© 2015 Anthony Christoffels. Used with permission.
The Rest for The Weary 