Being the Magnifier – 20 December 2015 – Fourth Sunday in Advent

Although this Sunday is the end of the Advent season, we can begin to think about Christmas because we hear Mary’s song. She invites us to sing with her so that my soul and your soul also “magnify the Lord.”

What is unique and most interesting about Christians celebrating Christmas, as distinct from the way in which the world celebrates Christmas, is the way in which we join Mary and Elizabeth. Christians believe that Christmas is the fulfillment of all that God has said to us, all that he has promised through Micah and his prophets, all that heals our broken relationship with God, our expulsion from the Garden, our broken humanity and garbled tongues.

Christmas is not to us merely the birth of an incredibly interesting, nice, loving guy with the enhancing opinion that we all should be more like him. Christmas is not people feeling kindness toward others for a few days because of Jesus—the Christmas truce—followed by the inevitable return to the focus on promoting self and killing each other (even with a good deal of romantic irony) if we need to.

Christmas is about Christians believing that the fulfillment has already happened: that in Jesus Christ heaven and earth have come together to live on the same page, that in Christ, God and humanity are at peace and working together in tandem, in a new relationship that makes the old estrangement obsolete, a New Covenant, a new understanding of God and ourselves together.– John E. Smith

Luke 1:39-55

Ah! The Magnificat! Perhaps it is a year to sing more than to preach. Our poets and composers have plumbed the depths of this canticle. Perhaps we should let them have the spotlight. After all, the people will return tonight and again tomorrow. There is plenty of time to talk. Let the people hear Mary's song—or, even better, sing it themselves. Perhaps they will better grasp the reversals that this God, our God, promises—those which Miriam Therese Winter captures well in her verse: “Love casts the mighty from their thrones, promotes the insecure, leaves hungry spirits satisfied, the rich seem suddenly poor” (The New Century Hymnal, #119). – Scott Haldeman

Micah 5:2-5a

The history of world politics, with few exceptions, suggests that power alone can speak to power. This strategy, if it is one, seems to bring mostly conflict rather than peace. Micah seems to suggest that only by standing in the strength of the Lord will we be secure and find peace. While there are many examples of ancient and modern saints who provide the truth of this, who are the exemplars in your community today? What have your learned from them? – Ron Anderson

Hebrews 10:5-10

This week's reading from Hebrews, of all of the readings appointed this Advent season, reminds us that the mystery of the incarnation we now celebrate is not fully interpreted without reference to the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. In churches that celebrate the Eucharist each week, this connection is clearly heard and celebrated in the Eucharistic prayer. Whether you celebrate the Eucharist today or not, how will you make this connection clear in your preaching, praying, and singing? – Ron Anderson

May your spirit rejoice as you prepare for this last week of being prepared by God to welcome the One in whom you have found favor.

E. Byron Anderson is the Ernest and Bernice Styberg Professor of Worship and the Director of the Nellie B. Ebersole Program in Music Ministry at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

W. Scott Haldeman is associate professor of worship at Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois.

John E. Smith has served as a Methodist pastor for many years.

Homily Service 40, no. 1 (2006): 41-51.

Refining to Prepare – 6 December 2015 – Second Sunday in Advent

Advent is a season in which the messengers (Jesus, John the Baptist, and Mary) give us stark and mysterious language through which to look at the present from the vantage of the future. Visions of the future come from prophets. 

We preachers like to talk about the eschatological focus of this time and put that important-sounding language on the days instead of seeing Advent as a time merely to “prepare” for the birth of Jesus. But to speak of end-times, that eschatological realm, is to speak of what we are preparing to witness, because that future is now, the babe is past and coming, and time has collapsed. What Advent does is help us to clarify what real preparation entails. 

Luke 3:1-6

John the Baptist was of the lunatic fringe. He was physically on the fringe: on the banks of the Jordan, on the edge of the Promised Land. . . . He was psychologically on the fringe: a raging personality, insulting persons in authority, calling them to repent.

And yet the gospel tells us that John spoke a message of truth. This is the truth from the wild to the world. In the world persons live steady, stable, “normal” lives, constrained by the necessity of making a living and a desire to get along. In the wild, one is loosed from constraint and able to speak with a freedom that knows no bounds. With his wild ways, the voice of John the Baptist brought the world to attention.

For the people of Israel, the world was the promised land, which the Lord had carved for them out of the desert. The promised land had meaning, order and safety. The temple gave meaning as a reminder of God's presence. The Law provided order. Safety came from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Surrounding this ordered world was the desert, dangerous for the body as well as the soul. Wild animals threatened the body. . . Temptations threatened the soul. . . Only the holy could survive there. Elijah or Jesus went there to be tested. If order and meaning were to be found in the world, truth and holiness were to be found in the wild.

It is similar in the Western imagination. Whether in Europe or in America, the “world” of order was that settled place, carved out of the dangerous wilderness. . . .  The world needs to stay in conversation with the wild. Though Israel was born in the wild, during forty years of wandering in the desert, they could not leave it behind them. Once in the promised land, they could forget the wild only at their own peril. The prophets reminded them of it. – Fritz West

Malachi 3:1-4

The prophet Malachi points to the voice from the wilderness, as well, the place where what is not essential is burned away. We Christians link the prophets of the Old Testament with the one for whom we are to “prepare the way.” We may also see the image of the fire that refines as an image of salvation for which we are preparing. 

Is Immanuel the one who comes as a fire to burn away the dross and refine us, like the descendents of Levi processed into pure gold and silver, so that our offerings, our lives, will please God (Malachi 3:3)?   

. . . Perhaps the question is less about the character of the Coming One, and more about us. If we are hard-pressed and need rescue, we require a strong savior riding upon the clouds and smiting those who oppress us; if we enjoy relative comfort, especially if our wealth and privilege are derived from the exploitation or oppression of others, we must expect that the new order will ensure that those who are hungry now are filled while we may be sent empty away. – Scott Haldeman

Philippians 1:3-11

In Malachi, the refiner's fire and the fuller's soap (the latter reappears in descriptions of the Transfiguration) do not bring purity as an end in itself. Rather, they purify so that we may present offerings in righteousness. . . . But what might this mean for the “royal priesthood” (1 Peter) of the baptized? . . . How do we prepare ourselves to be pure and blameless, producing the “harvest of righteousness” (Phil. 1:10–11)? – Ron Anderson

Fritz West, a liturgical author and retired pastor of the United Church of Christ, lives in Marine on the St. Croix, Minnesota, and serves as the Presiding Member of the Association for Reformed & Liturgical Worship Steering Committee. 

W. Scott Haldeman is associate professor of worship at Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois.

E. Byron (Ron) Anderson is the Ernest and Bernice Styberg Professor of Worship and the Director of the Nellie B. Ebersole Program in Music Ministry at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

Homily Service 40, no. 1 (2007): 21-30.