Love Wins in the End 1/22/24
Love Wins in the End
Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-45
Micah 5:2-5a
Now you are walled around with a wall; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek. 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. 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. 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; and he shall be the one of peace.
Luke 1:39-45
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Prayer
Gracious God, we give you thanks for the witnesses of faithful believers like Mary and Elizabeth. Help us to look forward to and to welcome your advent among us as boldly and expectantly as they. Grant us the grace to be open to the leading of your Holy Spirit, moving among us, enlisting our aid in the expansion of God’s reign, sending us out into the world to work with God in Christ’s redemption of the world, showing to the world that love wins in the end - Amen.
Many will remember Roots, Alex Haley’s 1976 phenomenal book that was a New York Times bestseller for 46 weeks. We will also remember the must-see television miniseries thereafter, as 130 million people tuned in to follow the saga of an American family that began with a 17-year-old Gambian boy named Kunta Kente.
That book stirred up a thirst for belonging that has not abated. Indeed, the legacy of Roots is that many families even now are eager to find their place, to connect to the past, and to trace their roots—via the National Archives or the Freedmen’s Bureau or DNA kits like 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, and Ancestry DNA.
As we move into the Advent season, could not the earliest chapters of the Lukan Gospel be our own collective story of Roots—that is, an attempt to trace the roots of Jesus’ prophetic movement? Could not those chapters, especially Luke 1:39–55 among them, provide us with a sense of belonging, a sense of identity, as we celebrate with expectancy the arrival of God’s intervention in human society even today?
God knows we need some roots. The strains and stresses of Christianity visible in our society today seem a far cry from the virtuous settings in which the prophetic lives of John and Jesus found their footing. Market mentalities seem to control our vision of this important season. Incessant news feeds remind us of the trauma that church members, especially the young ones, have been forced to face because of high-profile clergy sex-abuse scandals. Furthermore, many Christians have embraced an ultranationalist brand of Christianity—one in which religious zealotry trumps constitutional law. So, yes, God knows we need some roots. And Advent reminds us of at least three of them.
One root is the celebration of the assurance of God’s promises in others. The Advent story could have been told solely to accentuate the individual statements of praise by Elizabeth and Mary—to tell us what God had done just for Elizabeth or to tell us what God did just for Mary.
Instead, the Advent story brings the two women together, and we see their mutual recognition of what God was doing in the other’s life. Mary greets while Elizabeth blesses. Elizabeth’s “the fruit of your [Mary’s] womb” aligns well with “the child of my [Elizabeth’s] womb.” Huddled together in Judah’s hills, both can visibly see in each other’s pregnancy the assurance of the promises of God in the other.
This only happened, though, because one of the women (Mary) went on a journey to see the other (Elizabeth). Would we not be rescued from the narcissistic self-interest of our own daily affairs if we were placed in the proximity of others? Would we not see the brimming humanity and divinity in all if we did not isolate ourselves through the trappings of gated communities, outmoded notions of what constitutes a family, and retrograde immigration policies? Who is willing to take Mary’s spot today—to travel, to make the journey to see what God is doing in someone else’s life?
A second root of which we are reminded at Advent is the constancy of God’s mercy. While many see a great reversal in Mary’s Magnificat, and rightfully so, let us not miss an emphasis on the unchanging nature of God’s mercy. As Mary’s song moves from a personal paean of praise to a broader statement on what God had done in the lives of Mary’s people, it emphasizes the constancy of God’s mercy. Such phrases as “generation after generation” and “forever” suggest that Mary’s song is not limited temporally to the past nor the present. Whatever God is doing, God is capable of doing it for a long time—forever.
That root of the constancy of God’s mercy is sorely needed. Our world is marked by change: natural changes, like the ebb and flow of the tides; technological changes, like the arrival of phones that are smart, cars that are electric, social media platforms that are plentiful, and Generative AI that is here to stay. Still, though, other changes—declining health, turns of fortune, the loss of a loved one, and even the ups and downs of political election cycles—create anxiety and weigh heavily upon us. In the face of such anxiety-producing change, Advent reminds us of what is constant—the mercy of God.
A third root of which we are reminded at Advent is the contagion of praise. In a biological sense, we speak of “contagion” in a negative way, as something, like an active form of tuberculosis, to be avoided. In a psychological sense, though, the word “contagion” may be positive. Indeed, in the Advent story of the Lukan Gospel, we see that the idea of contagion can be a positive factor in the spreading of vitality and hope.
Mary’s canticle of hope announces a major theme that will unfold across the narrative of Luke-Acts: salvation by reversal. This reversal begins with Mary herself. God looks upon her lowliness as God’s servant (or better, her humiliation as God’s slave) and calls her blessed. But then quickly Mary’s prophetic announcement of salvation extends beyond an individualistic to a cultural, systemic concern. Luke presents her as preaching that God brought judgment on the proud and the powerful, sending the rich away empty, and conversely that God lifted up the lowly and fed the hungry.
There are two keys to understanding the Magnificat’s proclamation of salvation by reversal to which we should attend. First, Mary is responding to her pregnancy. The canticle is a prophetic celebration of the fact that Elizabeth’s declaration confirms the fulfilment of what the angel promised: Her son “will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David”. So, this ecstatic speech is a prophecy of what God will do through Christ.
Second, however, Luke shapes the Magnificat by having Mary speak of God’s actions in the past tense: God looked, did great things for me, showed strength, scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry, sent the rich away empty, and helped Israel. Note that modern English translations render the verbs in the perfect tense (for example, “has looked”) implying an action in the past that continues on into the present.
Thus, we see that the Magnificat is a paradoxical prophecy. It speaks of a future God will bring in through the yet-to-be-born messiah using past tense verbs. There is a sense, then, in which Luke is proclaiming that already at the point of awaiting the coming of the messiah, salvation is a done deal.
The paradox of the Magnificat is the paradox of our faith. This is the “already” (past tense verbs) and “not yet” (hope for the future) of biblical eschatology. Already the reign of God has arrived, but when we look around at the world we plead that God’s reign might yet come. Is not this the paradox of Advent itself: Christ already came (born, preached, healed, opposed the powers-that-be, died, resurrected, and ascended) and yet we begin the Christian year waiting, preparing, and hoping for him to come?
At the center of the paradox is the concern for why Jesus came/is coming. We often talk about salvation in terms of individual redemption. But Mary will not allow us to think of individual salvation apart from Jesus turning the power structures of the world on its head. As the beginning of the Magnificat that focused on the reversal of Mary’s situation cannot be separated from the latter portion that focused on systems of power being reversed, our salvation is part and parcel of the saving of the world.
As we remember Mary’s song of hope this morning it does two things at once – it points back to all that God has done for us in the past while at the same time pointing at what God will continue to do for us in the future. This song of hope reminds us, as we wait hopefully and expectantly for the coming Christ – and that is, at the end of the day God’s love, God’s mercy, God redeeming grace will win in the end. Nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from that love, that mercy, that redeeming grace. And that my friend’s reflects the boundless love of God for you, for me, for all of God’s children and all of God’s creation meaning that God’s love wins in the end – thanks be to God – amen.