Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Dec. 24, 2017

The Madonna of the Magnificat (1481), tempera painting by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. (Click image to enlarge.)

“Once in Royal David’s City.” As we turn from Advent to Christmas overnight this year, our readings for the fourth and last Sunday of Advent trace the Messianic line of King David that Christians follow down the ages to Jesus. In the first reading, David muses that it seems wrong for him to rest comfortably in a palatial house of cedar while God’s house, the Ark of the Covenant, rests in a mere tent. The prophet Nathan agrees that God should have a fine house, a temple, but God has a different plan. God lives and moves with the people, and needs no house! God, rather, will establish the house of David, the dynasty of God’s people. We hear this echoed in Luke’s Gospel today, as the angel tells Mary that Jesus will inherit the throne of his ancestor David.”

Alternative to the Psalm: Luke 1:46-55 (Canticle 15)

For the second Sunday in a row, the Magnificat, the surprisingly radical Song of Mary, is available as an alternative to the usual Psalm. As we hear in today’s Gospel, the Angel Gabriel has told Mary that she will give birth to King David’s heir, the Messiah. When she feels the infant move in her womb during a visit to her relative, Elizabeth, who will soon give birth to John the Baptist, Mary rejoices in a poetic celebration that echoes the words of the prophets; thoughts that, perhaps, her son Jesus would hear from his mother: “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.”

Psalm: Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26

In harmony with our first reading, this Psalm portion celebrates God’s covenant with David and his descendants, a royal family that God established to last forever. Even through the devastation of war and the pain of exile, when Israel and Judah feared that God’s promise might have been revoked because the nation had broken its covenant by failing to be just and righteous, the Psalms sing of a new King David, a Messiah and King who would rule the land forever, “from the great sea to the river,” from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Jordan, the Galilee, and the Dead Sea..

Second Reading: Romans 16: 25-27

“Can’t we all just get along?” Throughout Paul’s powerful letter to the Romans, he gently encouraged Rome’s Gentile and Jewish Christian communities, who had been separated during the exile of Rome’s Jews, to come back together in Christian love and unify as one. Here, in ringing verses that conclude the letter, he reminds them that God’s covenant with the people in the First Testament, as expressed by the ancient prophets, now extends to all humanity, all living forever in glory through Jesus Christ.

Gospel: Luke 1: 26-38

As Advent ends on Christmas Eve this year, we hear Luke tell the familiar story of the Angel Gabriel’s visit to a young Palestinian woman named Mary. Through God’s Holy Spirit this young woman will give birth to a son named Jesus, who will inherit King David’s throne and rule over an eternal kingdom. She responds to this amazing news with simple, trusting acceptance: “Let it be with me according to your word.” Just a few verses later in Luke’s Gospel, she will go on to utter the liberating poetry of the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, celebrating the God who casts down the mighty, lifts up the lowly, feeds the hungry and sends the rich away empty.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Dec. 17, 2017

John the Baptist pointing toward the crucified Jesus. Detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece (1512-16), oil on wood panel by Matthias Grünewald (1480-1528). (Click image to enlarge.)

Watch as the Advent candle is lighted on Sunday: The one pink candle, a symbol of rejoicing, marks this day. Midway through Advent, our readings shift from a focus on the fire and upheaval of an apocalyptic Judgement Day toward a different kind of hope, a joyful hope that looks forward to God’s restorative justice that will come with the Messiah. The Prophet Isaiah – writing prophecy that Jesus will later declare fulfilled in his presence when he speaks in the synagogue at Nazareth – tells the people that God will comfort all who mourn. God’s good news will come to the poor, the oppressed, captives and prisoners, turning their state to gladness instead of mourning.

Psalm: Psalm 126

As Isaiah told the people in exile of God’s promise that justice and righteousness would be restored, the Psalmist sings that God’s promise was in fact fulfilled, that God has indeed done great things for Zion, the mountain in Jerusalem where the Temple stood, and thus, if frequent biblical metaphor, the Temple itself. Every verse of this short Psalm contains a shout of laughter, joy, gladness, and praise. God has been good. God has turned the people’s tears into songs of joy; their weeping into a bountiful harvest.

Alternative to the Psalm: Luke 1:46-55 (Canticle 15)

As an optional alternative to the Psalm, we may sing the Magnificat, the beautiful Song of Mary. In Luke’s Gospel Mary bursts into this powerful song when she greets her relative, Elizabeth. Elizabeth with John the Baptist, feels the infant move with joy inside her when the pregnant Mary comes in. Elizabeth declares Mary the blessed mother of God, full of grace. In response, Mary sings these startlingly radical verses that echo Isaiah and foreshadow Jesus’ own teaching; liberating verses that praise a God who scatters the proud, casts down the mighty, and sends the rich away hungry, while filling the hungry with good things.

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Paul concludes his short first letter to the Thessalonians with themes consistent with those that we heard in the first readings from 1 Corinthians and 2 Peter on the first two Sundays of Advent. He urges the people to rejoice always, pray unceasingly, and give thanks for all things, staying faithful and filled with the Spirit. Hold fast to the good and abstain from every kind of evil, he urges them, so they will be ready, “sound and blameless,” when Jesus Christ returns.

Gospel: John 1:6-8,19-28

Following the story of John the Baptist in Mark’s Gospel last Sunday, we now turn to the Gospel according to John. This version makes no mention of the Baptist’s attire or his dietary preferences, but opens into a tense scene in which the Temple authorities, worried about the noisy crowds surrounding John, want to know who he is. He is neither a new prophet nor Elijah, John says, but – quoting from the Isaiah verses that we heard last week – the voice crying out in the wilderness, calling on the people to make straight the way of the Lord. He baptizes with water, John says, to make way for the one who is coming after him, who is so much greater that John is unworthy to untie his sandals.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Dec. 10, 2017

Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness (1604-05). Oil painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610); Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. (Click image to enlarge.)

The Messiah is coming! Get ready! The Messiah is coming! Make the way clear! Imagined in modern language, Sunday’s readings might be shouting “Roll out the red carpet!” as we move into the second week of Advent. Our Isaiah reading – which may sound familiar, as Handel drew from it freely in his beloved “Messiah” – sings out comfort and hope to the people in exile. Jerusalem has paid doubly for her sins. Life is short as grass and flowers, but God’s word stands forever. Prepare the way! Make a straight highway in the desert, the prophet calls. Then we see a poetic image of a gentle, maternal Messiah who holds the lambs closely and gently leads the mother sheep.

Psalm: Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

Sunday’s Psalm, particularly as edited to skip over a few verses of wistful doubt, shares the joyful hope of the Isaiah reading. The Psalmist remembers the people’s time time in exile, and rejoices that God did, indeed, come to the people with comfort and peace. Even though the people had been sinful and broken their covenant with God, God forgave their iniquity and blotted out all their sins. The straight highway that was built at Isaiah’s command has become a path for God’s feet.

Second Reading: 2 Peter 3:8-15a

This letter written in Peter’s name is the latest document in the New Testament, written down 100 years or more after the crucifixion. After such a long time, people worried: Why hadn’t Christ come back yet? He had been expected to return in power and glory, but that didn’t happen. What did this mean? The author had an idea, one that we also hear in the Isaiah verses: God’s time is not like our time. “One day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” Be patient and live godly lives, while God waits patiently for all to come to repentance before the day of the Lord comes.

Gospel: Mark 1:1-8

Mark’s Gospel, the first written in the New Testament, perhaps only 30 or 40 years after Jesus died on the cross, does not say a word about Jesus’ birth but begins with Jesus as an adult, coming to John at the Jordan river to be baptized for repentance and forgiveness of sins. Mark first shows us John the Baptist, a wild man eating locusts and honey and wearing camel’s hair, shouting Isaiah’s promise that God would send a messenger to prepare the Messiah’s way. Jesus is coming after him, John foretells: The one so powerful that John is not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandals is coming to baptize us with the Holy Spirit!

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Dec. 3, 2017

Enjoy a close look at The Son of Man Coming in Clouds, a detail from The Last Judgement (1536-1541), by Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564) fresco in the Sistine Chapel in Rome that we saw in full in last week’s Illuminations. (Click image to enlarge.)

Advent has come, and with it we turn from Matthew to Mark in our Gospel readings; our Old Testament readings this year will offer an anthology of Israel’s ancestral legends and its earthly kings. Despite the changes, though, the content of this Sunday’s readings stays in harmony with last week’s: God is coming and God will judge. God’s advent may come as a surprise, with fire and upheaval. We must be ready. Here near the end of Isaiah’s great book, the people have returned from exile, but they face harsh reality: The city and the temple were destroyed. They are only a defeated remnant. Oh, God, the prophet cries, come down! Show your might, restore your people. Make us new and forgive our sins.

Psalm: Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

Our Psalm echoes Isaiah’s call, sending up three times to God the anguished cry, “Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.” The people have suffered. God’s punishment has forced them to endure their enemies’ derision and laughter. They have eaten and drunk their tears like bread and water. Send us a messiah, the prophet pleads – the son of man at God’s right hand – and the people will never turn from God again.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a deeply pastoral epistle that will address serious fractures in a small, passionate Greek Christian community. Paul begins with no hint of conflict, though, using in the formal style of ancient Greek correspondence: He sets the scene by greeting the people with grace and peace, reminding them that grace has come to them through Jesus and enriched them, filling them with spiritual gifts. Because of this, Paul assures them, they will be ready, strong and blameless when Christ returns.

Gospel: Mark 13:24-37

In our first reading, Isaiah prayed for God to come with justice after the first destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Now, just as the Romans are destroying the city and the temple for a second time, Mark’s Gospel foresees Jesus coming in clouds, in power and glory. In an apocalyptic passage that echoes the Prophet Joel, we hear that the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the skies. This will be a tumultuous time, Jesus warns his followers, so they must watch for signs of his return. Like the wise bridesmaids with their oil-filled lamps, they must stay awake, ready and alert.