Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (C)

Ist rdg Mic 5:1-4a from you will come forth one to rule Israel/feed flock
psalm Psalm 80 Lord make us turn to you, let us see your face and we …
2nd rdg Heb 10:5-10 I come to do your will/ sanctified thru offering of JC
gospel Lk 1:39-45 visitation/why has … come to me?/blessed is she who …

Jesus within Mary’s womb in our gospel, engenders a response from his cousin in Elizabeth’s womb. There is something about the encounter in today’s gospel that makes us think about how much we long for the encounter with God that God is so graciously offering us. We are bereft without that encounter and our lives – no matter the accomplishments or titles or accumulation of stuff, are achingly less than what they can be / should be.

Elizabeth and Mary are two rather unnoticeable figures of their time. How comforting that God uses the familiar, the ordinary, to be with us. It is at the heart of our sacramental life. It is the mystery Guerric of Igny writes about in his sermons, saying like Mary we are to be God bearers, poor insignificant unknowns that we may be.

The elements of the encounter in today’s gospel are the plot, not of a Hallmark movie or the script of television or Hollywood writers. God is the author of the unfolding in Luke’s gospel and it is an occasion not limited to the characters who are historically present to the event. For John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth’s womb just as much to excite us as he excites his mother. He calls our attention to Jesus in Mary’s womb just as much as he directs Elizabeth’s attention to his cousin.

I can’t help but wonder at Elizabeth’s words to Mary: “Why has the mother of my Lord come to me?” Indeed are all of us not amazed that God draws near to us again and again. It is God’s very plan to engage us – to steal our attention away from the insignificant – to call us to embrace the nearness of our salvation. We must truly ask ourselves: “Why does God come in time and history, not limiting his coming to those of a particular time on the calendar, but in time and for all time?” For we are just as surely the recipients of the saving event whose unfolding involves this day in the life of Elizabeth and Mary and John the Baptist and Jesus, as they were.
Which brings me to draw your attention to another line from the gospel spoken by the woman who bore the shame for so long of not being able to become pregnant – of being barren. Elizabeth is seen in this gospel, climbing out of grief and shame to embrace the moment of encounter. She invites us to do the same as she says to her cousin, Mary: “… blessed is she who believed …”. How wonderful it would be if that is what people want to say about us! Isn’t it wonderful to say of those whom we feel fortunate to have close to us in our lives – they believe! Aren’t we fortunate when we can say we are in the company of believers.

In some way this is what is at the heart of our gospel today. We can say in words that we believe God’s promise to come to us. But it is the living as people who believe that should distinguish us in the midst of our brothers and sisters. How easy to pass for being a person of faith. How striking to recognize in Mary, Elizabeth, John the Baptist and Joseph a vibrant faith, a daring faith that changes history, ushering in, by cooperating with God, the very reign of God.

As Micah tells us it is no regal figure who rules over this kingdom, but one who feeds, who nourishes the flock. Or as we find in Hebrews, it is the one who does not his own will but the will of the Father, who leads us beyond the world we know, to the fullness of God’s life. It is by uniting ourselves in the way we live with Jesus who sanctifies us by offering himself for us, that our identity as believer is recognizable. And now, here, where we are gathered in faith, by means of the familiar, bread and wine, Jesus gives himself for us and to us once again. In this sacrament we are being nurtured and fed by Jesus. The same Jesus born to Mary and Joseph so humbly in Bethlehem, who caused his cousin, John, to leap in Elizabeth’s womb because of nearness.

This year Christmas Eve comes on Tuesday, very close to the fourth Sunday of Advent. We don’t get a week to think about readying ourselves to remember the birthday of Christ. But we do get this gospel urging us to attune ourselves to the reality of God entering our lives out of love and engaging us through what is right before us. May we like Elizabeth be moved beyond any sorrow or shame, any preoccupation with disappointments from the past, to recognize what God is bringing about right before our eyes. And may we like Mary believe from the very core of our being in what God has chosen to bring about in our behalf.