Advent 3 | Now in our midst
“Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart!
The Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.
”
Let us pause to recall that teenaged girl – alone and vulnerable — who responded with breathtaking faith to an angel’s stunning news. At one sacred “hinge in time” Mary carried all the generations of waiting and said “yes” to the coming of God in our midst.
Mary – brilliant yet humble, likely illiterate, without wealth or status, from a backwater town – shows us what Christian faithfulness looks like. Through her surrender to the wild and unpredictable will of God, Mary reveals a way of life in which we, too, may say “yes” to the work of God.
In these final days of Advent, let us watch with Mary, who, her belly swollen with Life, waited to go into labor two thousand years ago.
Rev. Alfred Delp (1907-1945) said “yes” to God by opposing Hitler and was condemned to death for his witness. From his prison cell, knowing that execution is imminent, Delp calls us to “an Advent of the heart” that waits with readiness for Christ:
Advent consolation streams from the mysterious figure of the blessed, expectant Mary. The grey horizons must grow light….Beyond the present tumult there exists a different realm, one that is now in our midst. The woman has conceived the Child, sheltered him beneath her heart, and given birth to the Son. The world has come under a different law. Christmas is not only a historic event that happened once, on which our salvation rests. Christmas is the promise of a new order of things.
We must remember that the blessed woman of Nazareth is an illuminating figure of life, of our existence. Deep down in her being, our days and our destinies bear the blessing and mystery of God. The blessed woman waits, and we must wait too until her hour has come. We must be patient and wait with readiness for the moment when it pleases the Lord to appear anew in our night, too.
Let us say “yes” to God, now in our midst.
*adapted from Tish Harrison Warren’s Advent: The Season of Hope
*Spanish painting detail of Our Virgin and Child of Guadalupe, 1745. • Source: Wellcome Collection
Grace & Peace,
Karen Wright Marsh, Executive Director