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By the Rev. Lee Woofenden
Bridgewater, Massachusetts,November
28, 1999
First Sunday in Advent
Readings
Micah 5:1-5 A
ruler promised from Bethlehem
Marshal your
troops, O city of troops, for a siege is laid against us. They will strike
Israel's ruler on the cheek with a rod. But you, Bethlehem Ephratah, though
you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who
will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.
Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor
gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He
will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty
of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his
greatness will reach to the ends of the earth, and he will be their peace.
Luke 1:26-38 The birth of Jesus foretold
In the sixth month,
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged
to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name
was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly
favored! The Lord is with you."
Mary was greatly
troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But
the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with
God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him
the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign
over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
"How will this
be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
The angel answered,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will
overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even
Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who
was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with
God."
"I am the
Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have
said." Then the angel left her.
Arcana Coelestia #9042 Spiritual pregnancy
"A pregnant
woman" means forming goodness out of truth. The reason it has this
meaning is that in the internal sense, the birth of physical life that we
receive from our parents stands for our rebirth, which is the birth of
spiritual life within us. When we are born anew, we are first conceived, then
carried in the womb so to speak, and finally born. And since rebirth, or the
birth of spiritual life, consists of uniting truth and goodness--in other
words, uniting faith and kindness--"carrying in the womb" means
developing our truth into goodness. From this we can see that spiritually,
"a pregnant woman" means a stage in which goodness is being formed
from our true ideas.
Sermon
Do not be
afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give
birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. (Luke 1:30, 31)
Good morning! I
hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving. We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with
Patty's family on Thursday, and then spent some time with my family yesterday.
When we are with family, we are reminded of times when we were younger. We
share stories of the times when we were growing up, or when we were raising
our own families. If we look back far enough, we come to the time of our
birth--though most of us do not remember that particular event. And then there
are the births of our children, our grandchildren. . . .
Now, with
Thanksgiving past, we are entering into Advent: a time when we look forward
with anticipation to the Lord's birth among us, which we celebrate at
Christmas. Christmas is also a time of family gatherings. And it is a time of
special gatherings for our church family, too. In fact, just as for many
families, Christmas brings the biggest family gatherings of the year, here at
our church--and in many other churches, too--the Christmas Eve service brings
our biggest family gathering of the year as we celebrate the wonderful birth
that happened two thousand years ago.
Let's look back to
that birth for a moment. At this time, a few weeks before her child was
delivered, Mary was still an expectant mother. We can imagine her, probably a
teenaged girl, nine months pregnant, her first baby moving and kicking
strongly inside her. She knew that the baby would be born soon. Perhaps she
was already on her way to Bethlehem with Joseph, to whom she was engaged to be
married.
Yet this was no
ordinary baby moving about inside her womb. This was a baby with no human
father, whose coming had been announced to Mary by the angel Gabriel. "Do
not be afraid, Mary," the angel said, "you have found favor with
God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him
the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign
over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." This was
not only to be a miraculous birth; it was to be a royal birth.
"How will this
be?" Mary asked the angel, "Since I am a virgin?" The fact that
she was a virgin was the most obvious problem with Gabriel's message. But she
might also have asked, "How could I, a common girl engaged to a common
craftsman, give birth to a king?" Surely this was too much even to dream
of; too much to take seriously. Yet the angel reminded her that nothing is
impossible with God. This is how this miraculous royal birth would take place,
he said: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of
God."
Mary accepted the
message which the angel gave her. "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to
me as you have said." And now, a few weeks before her baby was due to be
born, Mary was expecting not only the birth of a baby boy, but the birth of a
great king. And even more than that, she was expecting the birth of the Son of
God. I suspect, though, that even after hearing the angel's message, and even
after becoming pregnant before she had come together with her husband-to-be,
Mary could not possibly have grasped the full implications of what the angel
was telling her.
Even today, two
thousand year later, the world still does not fully grasp what the angel
Gabriel told Mary so many centuries ago. Even today, much of the world's
population, even many of the people in so-called Christian nations, do not see
the birth of Jesus Christ as any different than any other birth--though they
may recognize that this particular baby had more influence on the world's
history than most.
Becoming more
personal, even those of us who are committed Christians--even you and I--do
not and cannot ever grasp the full implications of that birth. Our
finite, limited minds simply cannot grasp the full infinity and eternity of
God's greatest miracle. No matter how deeply we open our minds and hearts to
the wonder of that birth in Bethlehem, there will always be infinitely greater
depths remaining for us to explore.
And yet, each one
of us is expectant in our own way. Each one of us hopes that something special
will happen this Christmas. Each one of us hopes to feel some of the magic of
Christmas. Yes, we want it to touch our children and grandchildren. But none
of us is so old and worldly wise to have that we do not still have somewhere
in our heart the childlike wish that we, too, will be touched by the wonder of
Jesus' birth.
Each one of us is
like an expectant mother. And what a mixture of feelings expectant mothers
have! Of course, being male I had to share these feelings vicariously through
Patty as we waited together for each of our children to be born. But I do know
something of them myself--for as a father, my heart is also bound up with my
children. There is a feeling of anticipation of the new life about to enter
the world. There is a sense of awe at the amazing miracle of a new human being
forming within--so quietly, so intricately, so powerfully.
And yet, mixed in
with these joyful feelings of wonderment is a feeling of anxiety, even fear,
lest anything should go wrong with this precious new life. Will the baby be
healthy? Will there be any problems with the birth? And then there are
concerns about the practicalities of life: of making ends meet and getting
things done with a helpless new baby to care for. Yes, our anticipation of the
birth of a baby is a mixture of joy and fear, of anxiety and awe, of mundane
concerns and high aspirations.
These are exactly
the feelings that we have when we are expectant mothers for the birth of the
Lord Jesus into our lives. We do have within us a sense of anticipation of the
new spiritual life represented by the Lord's birth at Christmas. We do wonder
at the miracle of this divine birth. Perhaps sometimes we can't quite accept
the miracle, and begin to think of Jesus as a merely human being like any
other. And yet, our souls reach out to a God who is so human and so loving
that he would be born among us as a baby and share with us our life on earth.
We want to believe that God could be so human, so present with us. And when we
open our hearts and minds to our deeper, spiritual aspirations, we begin to
feel more certainty that indeed, the Lord has come among us in this wondrous,
miraculous way.
But we cannot
always hold onto those feelings. All too often we get so caught up in the
hustle and bustle of Christmas preparations that we begin to think that
Christmas is simply a lot of extra work to make others happy, while we
ourselves feel the magic of Christmas passing us by. "I'm too old for
Christmas," we may say. "Now it's my turn to work, work, work so
that the children and grandchildren can enjoy their Christmas--just as I loved
Christmas when I was young."
Or perhaps we have
even deeper doubts. Perhaps we have fears within us that the Lord Jesus will
come stillborn into our lives; that we could never feel that divine presence
within us; that God cannot be present for us in that personal way; that we
have strayed too far away, and are lost to the deeper, spiritual magic of
Christmas. Perhaps we have anxious fears that there really is nothing more to
Christmas--that it is a hollow celebration.
These, too, are the
feelings of an expectant mother. And yet, through all our elations and our
fears, there is something more powerful than we could ever imagine working
within us. The power of the Most High overshadows each one of us as well. And
the holy one that will be born within us and among us is cared for by Almighty
God. This is no ordinary birth. This is the birth of the divine presence
within us. This is not a merely human birth, but the birth of the Son of God.
And if we are willing to open our hearts to that birth, we will feel
its miraculous divine power working in our lives.
What is this new
and powerful birth that is even now growing and gestating in the spiritual
womb of our hearts and minds? This new birth is not a material birth that
gives us more money, a better car, a better house. It is not a birth of new
status, a higher reputation, more worldly influence. No, the birth of the Lord
into our lives is a birth of new truth and new goodness in our lives.
In fact, Swedenborg
tells us, when the baby Lord is growing within us, it is a time when the truth
ideas we have learned about loving God and loving our neighbor are forming not
just our minds, but our hearts into new human vessels of love and goodness. It
is a time when our thinking minds and our feeling hearts are being knit
together within us, forming us into a new, more thoughtful and more loving
person.
I would like to
share with you how this has been happening for me lately in relationship with
you, the members of this congregation. One of the items in my job description
as Pastor here is "To attend to Pastoral Care: visitations and counseling
(from a pastoral view) and to be available for crisis care." Of course,
we learn in seminary that pastoral care is a vital part of ministry; and we
are taught many things about providing pastoral care, and about what an active
program of pastoral care can do for a congregation and its members.
These are all
concepts in a minister's head until he or she actually goes out and begins
visiting members of the congregation, being with families through weddings,
funerals, and other times of joy and of crisis. This fall, knowing that I have
a three month sabbatical coming up, in which I will not see very much of you,
I have given extra time to visiting. My goal has been to spend some time with
as many of you as I can before January rolls around. I have also reached out
to a few people I hadn't met before, and to people I hadn't seen for some
time. Meanwhile, there have been various family events--some happy, some
painful--that have brought me into closer contact with some of you.
Through all of my
personal visits with you during the three years I have been here, and now
through the greater amount of time I have spent with you this fall, something
has happened within me. Pastoral Care has moved beyond being something I
learned about in seminary and began to practice through the Field Education
program. Pastoral Care has become far more than an item in my job description,
and something that I know is good and healthy for the congregation and its
members.
Visiting with you
and spending time with you in your joys and sorrows has touched more than my
mind. It has touched my heart. As I get to know you better, and share with you
both your painful struggles and the goodness and love that is in each one of
you, I find that I am growing to love more and more the uniqueness of each one
of you, and the warmth and genuineness of this group of people bound together
as a church family.
You see, the true
ideas I learned about ministering to others have been knit together with the
love and kindness that we have shared with one another. And now I do feel a
bit like an expectant mother, eagerly anticipating with both anxiety and joy
the birth of a new relationship with this congregation as we move through and
beyond the sabbatical.
This expectancy is
happening at the very time we as a church are expectant of the new birth of
the Lord Jesus among us. It is happening as we look forward to Christmas,
hoping that we will be touched anew by the Lord's presence within us and among
us.
Yes, we are an
expectant church. It is to us, too, that the angel Gabriel speaks those
beautiful, powerful words: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be
called the Son of God." Yes, the Holy Spirit is coming upon us, too, this
Advent. The power of the Most High is overshadowing each one of us, and all of
us together as a church family. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ loves us, and
has a wonderful new spiritual birth in store for us. Amen.
Music: Mary's Boy Child
Traditional Carribean Carol
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