WHAT TO DO WITH A BLESSING

A Sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent
December 24, 2006
Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 1:47-55
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." (New Revised Standard Version)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

At last, we have come to the fourth Sunday in Advent. Our beautiful wreath is almost entirely aglow and we know this evening, we’ll get to light the Christ candle in the middle. The Advent wreath is a powerful symbol of God’s light illuminating the world’s deep darkness. And how as Christmas gets nearer, the light burns brighter.

This is a powerful symbol precisely because we know darkness. We know it all too well. Even this time of year, which is supposed to be so happy, is a dark, painful and depressing time for many. The the stress of the season shows on most everyone’s face: worn from all the shopping and wrapping and baking.

But that’s not all. Darkness pervades throughout the earth, especially in warn-torn regions like the Holy Land. In the little town of Bethlehem—the very place our Savior’s was born—there is no peace. We also think of US soldiers, like Josh Estebo, in Iraq who are not only in harm’s way, but they cannot come home for Christmas. The death toll of Iraqis is countless and US soldier loss is nearing 3,000. There are so many conflicts around the globe. In fact, there are 15 major armed conflicts at present.

With all of these things on top of whatever burdens we’re already bearing, it doesn’t necessarily make us feel in the Christmas Spirit, does it? We talk of Christmas being a blessing to all of us—that we are blessed with the gift of the Christ child. But how do we rejoice in this gift when we don’t feel particularly blessed in this moment?

And just what does “blessing” really mean? Most people think of blessing as God answering our prayers with what exactly we asked for, when we ask for it. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? We pray to God for something, and “poof!” God provides it. It’s almost like God should be wearing a red velvet suit with white fur trim, carrying a cosmic sack full of goodies for nice little Christians. Being showered with the goodies of life would be a great way for us to know we are on God’s “nice” list instead of the “naughty” one.

Yet if we dig into our Gospel text for today, we get a different picture of what a blessing is. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is—we must not forget—an unmarried, pregnant teenager. She certainly didn’t ask God for this. Nowhere in Scripture do we hear her prayer to God to be pregnant, to bear the Messiah. God chose this for her. This predicament was not just embarrassing and inconvenient, it could have gotten her stoned to death. That was the law of her time, and if her fianc?, Joseph, didn’t believe her angel story and turned her in to the religious authorities, she would be as good as dead.

Maybe that’s why Mary dashed out of town to visit her older, wiser cousin Elizabeth, who was also dealing with an unexpected pregnancy by the word of God. Maybe together they could come to terms with what it meant to be “blessed women.”

Elizabeth’s blessing wasn’t exactly what we’d expect a blessing to be, either. Sure, it was her prayers answered. For years, she had prayed for a child. She even promised (like Hannah of the book of Samuel) to give the child back to God for service in the Temple, if only God would grant her this request. Years went by, decades went by; and Elizabeth got used to the fact that she wasn’t going to have children. She got used to the fact that God doesn’t always dish out blessings, no matter how hard we pray for them. Sometimes, God seems horribly silent in the midst of our pain. If Elizabeth had learned to live with God’s silence, she could live through anything. And now, in her old age, when her time for childbearing and child rearing was way past, she had to learn how to live with answered prayers and blessing so long overdue. She, like Mary, had to learn to live with unexpected blessing.

The angel Gabriel had said to Mary, “Do not be afraid; you will have joy and gladness; you have found favor with God. For nothing will be impossible for God.”

Stunned by the angelic visitation, stunned by the impossible message spoken by Gabriel; stunned by the absurdity of their predicaments, no doubt Mary and Elizabeth asked what it means to be “blessed.” How can something be a blessing when it raises more questions than it answers? How do you live with a blessing that creates more problems than it solves? Mary and Elizabeth, no doubt, felt contradictory emotions. Pregnancy alone does that to women. But the strangeness of their pregnancies surely flooded them with expectations and apprehension; happiness and depression; confidence and nagging insecurities; hopes and fears. Elizabeth was old enough and wise enough to know (as Luke writes in Ch. 12) that those “to whom much is given, much is required.” Together, these two women grappled with the irony of being blessed by God: namely, that behind every blessing there is burden.

Both these women were to learn that the sons they were blessed with, were not their own. Both their sons would give up their lives, literally, in service to God. Both mothers would suffer the unimaginable and unspeakable horror of having their sons murdered. Mary, we’re told, witnessed her son’s brutal execution. This is the burden on the other side of blessing.

Indeed, the blessings these women received had burden. They had been given much, and so much was required of them. For them, the meaning of God’s blessing had much more depth than a “Santa Claus” idea of God showering us with goodies. God’s activity in human lives always is surprising; turning up where we’d least expect it; where we’d never think to look for it. God turns the world upside down, making us think again about what’s important, what’s real, what’s valuable.

So here is the interesting thing: if God’s blessings are two-sided (both joy and burden, requiring much from those to whom they are given) then perhaps the opposite is also true: those burdens that come our way in life have the hidden and surprising potential of becoming blessing. If we struggle with our burdens and refuse to let go of them until we receive a blessing—as Jacob did when he wrestled the angel—perhaps our upside-down God will turn our burdens over, in God’s time, and bring good out of them.

As Saint Paul writes, “In all things, God works together for good for those who believe, who are called according to God’s purpose.” That’s why Paul gave this instruction to the Christians in Thessalonia: “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances.” It may not be easy, but because we know God is God and God is always at work for our good, despite the darkness of the world, we can rejoice always. We can hold onto hope. That’s what the Christmas message is all about.

This reminds me of a poem by Jan L. Richardson from her book "Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas":

With each of our breakings you break,
and with each of our woundings your own wounds grow deeper.
Yet you hold the pieces together
till we learn to make the new connections,
and you guard each throbbing wound
till we have had enough of pain.
You remind us that it is our delight you seek, not our suffering.
And you tell us it is not the wounds that give us life,
but the tending of them in each other.
And you say it is not the breaking that makes us whole
but the mending of the pieces that brings us life anew.

As the season of Advent comes to a close, we prepare our hearts to receive the blessing of the Christ child. God has blessed us richly in this shocking birth of low estate. In it, God turns the world upside down. We must open our eyes and ears to look for God being borne in unexpected places. What is required of us is that we open our hearts to receive the both the burden that comes along with our blessings as well as the blessing that comes along with our burdens, laying them all—as Mary and Elizabeth did—in the hands of our all-powerful God. Amen.

Now, may the peace of God, which passes all understand, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© Laura E. Gentry 2006