4^th Sunday of Advent (B); December 24, 2017

2 Sam 7:1-5,8-12,14,16   Ps 89   Rom 16:25-27 Lk 1:26-38

Deacon Jim McFadden

        As Christmas is nearly upon us, the readings for the 4^th Sunday of Advent focus our attention on the notion of a dwelling place for God.

In the first reading, King David finds himself finally free: he has conquered his enemies, united the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and established Jerusalem as the nation’s capitol. Now he is about to usher in a period of glory and prosperity. He plans to build a beautiful palace for himself and a splendid temple for God so God can have a permanent dwelling place after being on the move. God had dwelled with the Israelites in the same way they had lived—in makeshift tents as they traversed between Egypt and Canaan. What’s interesting is that God did not ask David for such an edifice.

In today’s Gospel reading, Gabriel’s message to Mary is that God now wants to pitch his tent permanently with us by taking up residence in human flesh. The message will be brought to fulfillment in the Christmas readings. The Gospel for Christmas day, the Prologue of John’s gospel, reaches the high point in v. 14, “and the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

            In order for this to happen, Mary has to say, “yes.” What is Mary’s response to the revelation brought by the archangel Gabriel? “…she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be” (Lk 1:29). We can sense an undercurrent of distress, incomprehension, and even scandal as the account unfolds. The artist Henry Ossawa Tanner captures this sense in his painting, The Annunciation. I encourage you to pull up his painting on the Internet as we continue this reflection. In the painting Mary sits barefoot at the edge of her disheveled bed, with a look of puzzlement and concern, while gazing towards a golden beam in the form of a cross.

This should be a clue to everyone of us: when God interrupts our life and wants a favor, wants to be close to us, we, too, will be troubled and will wonder what this means. Everything else is up for grabs and the rest of her life and ours will be impacted by this one moment. Luke is telling his community and us that when we begin to hear the Gospel, the Good News, we’ll be very unsettled, because we know that it is going to change everything in our life.

As we all know, Mary did say “Yes”—let be done to me according to your Word. In so doing, Mary makes a physical home for the Holy One in her womb; hers was a unique role. But everything that is happening to Mary mirrors what is happening to us. We, too, are asked by God to become a dwelling place for the Christ within ourselves and within our world. It is often in the humblest of persons in the most difficult of circumstances that God takes up residence.

Just as Mary’s bed was disheveled in Tanner’s painting, the circumstances in which we receive God’s Word can also be messy. The irony is that it is in these most trying and even desperate times that we feel abandoned by God. We feel like crying out, “Where are you in this chaos…in this mess?!” Sometimes we feel that God is punishing us. It is precisely in such times of loss, confusion, and chaos that God dwells most intimately with us, reassuring that we, too, are full of grace and that we have found favor with God. God asks us in our here-and-now circumstances to trust that God can and will bring forth incredible blessing, even if we cannot see how that is going to happen.

Mary is the first, but not the last to say “yes” to the Father’s will. We follow Mary, who follows her Son. We must allow God to have a dwelling within us as individuals and as a community of believers. Jst as Mary had her cousin Elizabeth to lean on, we need to seek out in our community kindred souls who have experienced God and know how mysteriously God works in the world. We need them to be a safety net, a protection, a support for us as we struggle to surrender to God. God expects as much out of us as He did with Mary, but He always asks. And, through the intercession of our Blessed Mother, may we say “yes” as well.