An Advent Memory

The following is a sermon delivered at Old Swedes Church in Wilmington, DE on 4 Advent, 2018

Careful the things you say,

Children will listen.

Careful the things you do,

Children will see. And learn.

Children may not obey,

but children will listen.

Children will look to you

For which way to go

To learn what to be

Careful before you say,

"Listen to me."

Children will listen.  

--Stephen Sondheim 

It was his first time back in Nazareth since John had baptized him. He walked along the familiar streets of his home town as he headed toward the synagogue. Word surely had spread of his teaching in the synagogues around Galilee, and he was unsurprised when they handed him a scroll and asked him to teach here in his own childhood home.

As he was handed the scroll of Isaiah, he smiled. “Perfect,” he thought. “I know exactly where to begin.” He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

            Because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

            And recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,

To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

As he read the familiar words, his thoughts drifted back to his boyhood. He remembered playing outside with his cousin John and hearing his Aunt Elizabeth—really his mother’s cousin— as she called them inside.

“It’s time to eat,” Elizabeth called to the boys. “Wash up and come inside.”

The boys quickly washed their faces and hands and rushed into the house.

“Tell us the story again, please, Aunt Elizabeth,” he pleaded with her. John, too, looked up at his mother with wide eyes.

“Again?” she replied, laughing. “But I just told you yesterday, and the day before that.”

“Pleeeeease,” the boys cried out in unison.

“It’s my favorite story,” he added quickly.

“Fine,” Elizabeth said through a wide smile. “But you should be the one telling me. You’ve heard it enough.”

The boys settled into their chairs and ate their cakes of bread with anticipatory smiles on their faces.

“When your mother was expecting your birth,” Elizabeth began, looking on him with kind eyes, “And John was still growing inside me, your mother came to visit me. She was so happy that you were coming into the world, and she was also so scared. I was, too. Women my age didn’t have babies! Here we were, an unlikely pairing. Me, an older woman beyond child-bearing years, and your mother, a young woman not yet married.”

“Mary and I had always been close,” Elizabeth continued. “She often came to me for advice, and I enjoyed her company so much. On that day, however, something was different. Mary came into the house and, as always, called out: ‘Hello my dear cousin.’ At the sound of her greeting, I felt John leaping inside me.”

At this detail, John giggled, as he always did.

“I mean it!” Elizabeth said forcibly. “This wasn’t the daily kicks and turns a mother feels her baby making inside her. This was grander. More joyful. Leaping—dancing—within me. You see, boys, even from before the time you were born, you have always been connected.”

“As for me, I knew John was telling me something. I felt God’s presence completely envelope me, and I knew that God had plans for my baby, and I knew that God had chosen Mary to deliver the Savior into the world. Overcome with joy, I cried out to your mother, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’”

“Mary and I embraced one another, and as we looked into one another’s eyes, Mary burst into song. She and I remembered the story of Hannah from the scroll of Samuel. We remembered Hannah’s joy at learning that she, like me, would bear a son late in her life. We remembered Hannah singing that God

            ‘Raises up the poor from the dust;

                        [and] lifts the needy from the ash heap,

            To make them sit with princes’ (1 Sam 2:7-8).

“Remembering Hannah’s song, your mother sang her own song.”

He and John knew well what was coming. He had heard Elizabeth and his mother sing the song to them over and over. It was the song of his birth. It was song of his Advent. The song of what God was doing through him. Just as Mary had done before his birth, he, John, and Elizabeth sang together:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

The promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.”

Jesus’ mind returned from those joyful days of his boyhood, from the times staying with Elizabeth and Zechariah and his cousin John, and he looked down at the scroll. With the memory of his mother’s song fresh in his mind, Jesus read Isaiah’s words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” His mother’s words were so similar: “My soul magnifies the Lord . . . he has lifted up the lowly; . . . he has filled the hungry with good things.” He remembered the words of Hannah’s song, which his mother had read to him many times: “He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes.”

From his youth, his mother and father and cousins and rabbis had prepared him. They had taught him the stories. He knew that the God of his ancestors was establishing an eternal kingdom of peace, justice, and love. And he knew that God was establishing that kingdom through him.

Knowing that it would create confusion and mistrust among the leaders of the synagogue, Jesus looked up, ready to explain the scroll. There would be no turning back now. Once he proclaimed who he was and what God had sent him to do, he would have to live into the life for which his parents had prepared him. He shut his eyes for a split second and heard his mother’s loving voice singing in his head: “He has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.”

Jesus took a deep breath, then said in a loud voice, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

His mother, standing with the women, heard his voice carry throughout the synagogue and into the street. A bittersweet feeling of hope and anxiety filled her as she remembered all that had been revealed to her by God. And Mary pondered all these things in her heart.