22nd December 2024 at 10.30am – 4th Sunday of Advent – Eucharist

The Readings

Hebrews 10.5-10

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body you have prepared for me;
in burnt-offerings and sin-offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, “See, God, I have come to do your will, O God”
(in the scroll of the book it is written of me).’
When he said above, ‘You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt-offerings and sin-offerings’ (these are offered according to the law), then he added, ‘See, I have come to do your will.’ He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Luke 1.39-55

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 leapt 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 leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

Scripture quotations are from: New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The Sermon
Prepared by The Revd Canon Dr Alan Billings.

The life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was hard.

Apart from the mystery of the conception of her child, the holy family receive no special favours from God, no miraculous help. They are on their own. They have to get themselves to Bethlehem, despite the fact that Mary is close to giving birth. They have to make do with a stable for a hotel and a manger for a cradle. There is no miraculous escape from poverty.

Then they have to raise this child, who has been pronounced special, without any miraculous help either.

So how do you bring up the Son of God? I think every parent can sympathise with that question – which Mary must surely have asked herself.

Now, if you’ve been a parent you will know that one of the most nerve wracking things you ever have to do is go to parents’ evenings at your offspring’s school. You sit in front of each teacher waiting for the verdict. You feel as if it’s you that’s on trial. And what’s the worst thing a teacher can ever say?

Not that your child is never going to make it as astronaut or brain surgeon. You know that. The most difficult thing to hear is that your child has ‘potential’. It’s a word teachers love to bully parents with. ‘Your child has potential’. It’s not shown itself in anything concrete yet; but the potential is there – if only...

But if only what? What are you, the parent, supposed to do? Should you encourage or threaten? Should you chain the little beast to a desk, or encourage it to relax with friends? How do you best help them to realise their potential – or at least not get in the way?

If we feel these things with our children who have the potential to be good, honest, ordinary citizens, what must it have been like to know that you were responsible for the upbringing of the Son of God? How was Mary supposed to bring him up?

Well, we are not told what Mary thought or did. And apart from one incident when Jesus was 12, we have little information about his upbringing and childhood. We can only guess.

But I think a good guess is this: that God chose Mary to be the mother of the saviour because she could give him the sort of upbringing that would make him a loving person.

How does Mary do that? By being an ordinary loving mother, doing what ordinary loving mothers do with their children. Chastising when needed. Certainly. Praising when appropriate. Definitely. Sometimes getting that right; and sometimes getting it wrong – sometimes not being sure which is which, but even when getting it wrong still communicating that you love your children.

These are not miraculous qualities. They are the common or garden, everyday skills of being a parent. This is surely why the virgin Mary is chosen to be the mother of the Lord. Because she is a good, ordinary mother.

In saying this, we draw attention to something which goes against some more pious ideas about Mary. It is sometimes said of her that all she had to do was to say Yes to God. Yes, I will be the mother of the Lord. Just that, then God would do the rest. Her vocation is seen as utterly passive.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Saying Yes to God is only the beginning for Mary. It’s the easy bit. But a mother’s job is never passive.

Mary has to create a home for her son. She has to teach him how to forgive by forgiving him, how to love by loving him. This is passionate, patient and long-term work.

There are no miraculous short-cuts to raising a child to be a loving adult. You have to stick with it. That’s what Mary does and that’s why she was chosen to be the mother of the Lord. And it’s crucial; because what her son will do by being a loving person is show to the world what God is like. For God is love.

But notice this, What Mary says to the angel, ‘Let it be with me according to your word’, is what we each say every Sunday in this service when we repeat, as we do, the Lord’s prayer. We say, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done.’ Your will be done - by me. This part of the Lord’s Prayer is our Yes to God.

Like Mary, saying that Yes is the easy bit.

We say it in the context of worship where we are aware of the angels and archangels around us.

But then we have to go from here and live out our lives in the way we believe God wants of us – we must live passionately, patiently, in our everyday lives, whatever they consist of, without miraculous short-cuts.

Have we got it in us to do it? Surely, yes – for this must be why God chose us, just as he once chose Mary.

St Marys Walkley

The Church on the Road: inclusive, eucharistic, a safe place to be with God

22nd December 2024 at 10.30am – 4th Sunday of Advent – Eucharist