Promises, Promises

4^th Sunday of Advent

Cycle C

Mi 5:1-4a

Heb 10:5-10

Lk 1:39-45

“Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”

What had the angel Gabriel promised to Mary when he announced that she had been chosen to become the mother of the Lord? Did he say that she would be rich and powerful because of her son? Did he promise that life would be easy? Did he promise anything to her at all? All he said to her was that she was highly favored by God and had been chosen to become pregnant by the Holy Spirit. He said nothing else about her. All his promises were not about her but about her son.

He would be the Son of God, and he would save God’s people from their sins. Mary really got nothing out of it, other than the knowledge that she was doing the will of God. No riches, no power, no prestige was promised. In fact, it isn’t until we hear the encounter in today’s gospel that anyone says that this is a good thing for Mary. It is Elizabeth who calls her blessed. It is Elizabeth who says how wonderful it is that she said yes to God’s call. And of course Elizabeth would think this, of course she would know how blessed it is to have received God’s promise. She herself had been blessed with a child, which had been promised to her by God himself. Elizabeth knew God’s blessings firsthand. She had her proof that God was trustworthy, because he had answered her prayers.

Mary did not have that assurance yet. The first thing she did when Gabriel left her was to hurry to check it out for herself. The angel had told her that her cousin who had been barren was with child, and that God himself was responsible. Mary had just conceived, she was not showing yet and she had no early pregnancy test. She hurried off to see if it was all true. If Elizabeth was pregnant then she must be, too, and all the angel had said would come to pass. If not, then who knows what she had experienced.

The promises that Elizabeth says God made to Mary were not just for Mary personally. As a member of the human race Mary would also benefit from the fulfillment of God’s promise, but God’s promises were of old. Beginning with our first parents, who chose to turn away from the will of God, we have been separated from full union with our creator. Because of that there has been untold suffering, misery and death in the world that has affected and will continue to affect us all. Left to our own devices there would be no hope. But God is all about hope, so much so that he chose to be the very instrument of our salvation from ourselves.

God has never given up on us even when we have given up on him. From the very beginning, when we turned away from him, God has promised to set things right again. He sent Abraham, Moses and the prophets to proclaim the promise of hope. Then he himself came to earth to fulfill those promises. Through a lowly peasant girl in a small backwater country, whose hope in the promise overcame her fear and doubt at what was happening to her. Because nothing is impossible for God.

The angel didn’t promise Mary that there would be no more suffering, no more pain, no more war or violence, no more hatred. He just promised that the Lord would come to earth. In fact, his very coming would incite suffering, pain, violence and hatred against him and his disciples. He didn’t promise some utopian vision of a perfect life. He said it would be hard, he said it would entail the cross. But he said it was worth it.

We have turned Christmas into a vision of the perfect time of year, with perfectly dressed and coifed people singing perfect carols around perfect Christmas trees all oohing and ahhing about perfect presents and perfect feasts, because that is what we hope it will be. We celebrate Christmas every year because we need to keep hearing the promise and how it has been fulfilled. For one brief time each year we can escape from the horror and despair of the world with all its violence and suffering, and we can remember that it all turns out right in the end.

The promise of Christmas is not that we will be nice to each other once a year, that “Christmas spirit” we hear so much about. It’s not about a picture perfect day. The promise of Christmas is that no matter what we do to screw it all up every other day of the year, God came to earth to set things right again. For all of us, for all time.

Just the sound of the voice of the Mother of God could make John the Baptist leap for joy in the womb. We will also feel such joy when we are in the presence of our Lord. Blessed are we who also believe that the promises made by the Lord to us would be fulfilled, because hope is the greatest blessing we could ever have. And He shall be called Immanuel, God is With Us. King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace.