Mary sings radical, challenging, transformative hope!

This is my first winter as a full-time resident of these parts, and I must admit to a certain disorientation. I mean, where are the snowplows and the driveway salt? Where's the morning ritual of listening to the radio for your school district on the daily list of cancellations? I know… I moved down here to get away from all that, as many of you have—or at least make the annual trek south. But still... it’s disorienting!

You know, Advent, which we are wrapping up this week, can be disorienting, too! Everyone else is the full throes of Christmas… but we are still waiting. We are still looking forward because we know that the best is yet to come. Advent is the season of hope. And hope is faith that looks forward.

This week, we’ll officially enter winter, and we’ll discover somethings will begin to change. If you like to drive out the beach to watch the sunset, soon you’ll be doing that after dinner, not before. The days will gradually get longer, another sign of our season of hope.

And it happens all by itself! As the Earth spins around the Sun, and the tilt of our planet leans us more and more towards our star, Advent reminds us that we don’t save ourselves, but God is always doing his gracious work; all the more reason to find hope!

Today, with four candles lit, we got a double dose of the Song of Mary as it soared through as a Canticle and then in the Gospel reading and into our hearts once more!

We often think of Mary as gentle and meek, but today she is brave and bold, singing loud and strong. There has been a lot of chatter on the inter-webs and in social media about that song that muses about whether or not Mary knew what God was up to in Jesus. I don’t particularly care for the song, because, well, read the Gospel… she knew! But as in all our faith journeys, her knowledge unfolded as she uniquely participated in God’s redemptive work.

Mary the unwed mother, the fiancé of a poor carpenter, understood in a way that no one else could that everything — the very shape of human history — was about to change! A new dawn is on the way, and Mary sings out to greet it. The weight lessens; hope is born!

Hope is powerful because hope is faith that looks forward.

In the first installment of the three-part series The Hunger Games, there is a scene in the movie that is not in the book, but it sums up the trilogy’s theme. President Snow, the dictator of the dystopian, futuristic country of Panem, is walking in his rose garden with the chief “game maker,” Seneca Crane. Crane is the man responsible for creating the game that pits young people from the twelve districts of Panem against one another in a highly publicized fight to the death each year. The winner of the Hunger Games is then held up as a brave, strong hero that represents the spirit of Panem.

President Snow challenges Seneca Crane as to why the games must always have a winner. If the Capitol simply wanted to show its power and to instill fear and control, he says, why not simply execute people? It would be more efficient than the games! Why a winner?

Seneca Crane does not understand. He does not get what President Snow is driving at.

“Hope,” Snow says answering his own question. “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.”

The purpose of the Hunger Games was to give just a little hope, Snow explains. It’s really the illusion of hope, because the games entertain the people and allows them to have a hero to root for, while also keeping the Capitol firmly in control. A lot of hope would topple Snow’s oppressive regime entirely. The books and movies, as you either know or can probably guess, are about that spark that is not contained. The second installment of the story is called Catching Fire, as hope — a lot of hope — is revived in the country of Panem.

Hope is more than mere optimism. A lot of hope can shake the foundations of everything that weighs us down. A lot of hope can change the course of history. That’s because hope always looks forward. Hope is faith that looks forward.

Luke’s Gospel says that when the angel tells Mary the news, she consents, but she’s not singing yet. Not right away, anyway!

As Mary absorbs the news from the angel Gabriel that she will conceive and bear a child, he tells her, perhaps to console her: Elizabeth, your cousin, is pregnant too, even in her old age!

Gabriel didn’t actually tell Mary to go see Elizabeth. But she “made haste” (as the Gospel says) to go to the Judean town in the hill country just the same.

I think Mary wants to be near someone who understands; and also, to see for herself. And because Elizabeth’s pregnancy is also miraculous, she won’t think Mary’s crazy! And it is here, with another human being who understands that God works in weird and unexpected ways, that Mary is finally able to find the courage to sing her song of hope. Not ordinary optimism, but great hope! The kind that catches fire! The kind that sings out loud!

Today, Mary’s song invites us into the vulnerable territory of daring to hope big. Optimism looks backwards to find comfort in what we’ve experienced before. Hope — the big, world-shaking, musical hope of Mary — looks ahead, knowing that we cannot fully imagine what God is able to do, but trusting in God anyway.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with optimism. Optimism wishes for good fortune, for fun with friends and family during the holidays, for a blessed and happy new year, and for love and warmth to surround us. There is nothing wrong with a little optimistic Advent and Christmas cheer.

But if you have experienced the depths of despair, if you have experienced grief, if you have seen the pain that exists in the world, you know that optimism is not enough on its own. It is too difficult to sustain. The world is too broken, too violent, and too divided, and we alone cannot fix it.

Our one spark of hope is that God has spoken and told us that someday, all things — all things — from our personal struggles to the weight of the world’s pain, shall be made right. That hope is why Mary sings.

Today, the Gospel story invites us, like Mary, to seek out others in order to find our song of hope. It wasn’t until Mary was with Elizabeth that her hope burst into song. And maybe, whether we know it or not, that’s what we’ve done today, too. We have made haste and sought one another, to gather together so that we, too, can sing songs of hope.

Our song is one of extraordinary hope. Hope that has seen the broken and divided state of the world and knows that mere optimism we cannot repair the world on our own. Only God can, and only God will do that through the gift of Jesus. In the meantime, we are called to make our corner of the world that God so loves a less divided, more trustworthy, more hopeful place.

We are called to sing as Mary did: that God will lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things.

The best part about Mary’s song of hope is that is always fulfilled. Every year—every day if you say or sing Morning or Evening Prayer--we remember her bold song to remind ourselves that God has already broken through. Even in the darkness, even in the deepest disappointments, even when we are betrayed, and even when the world looks most broken, we keep this crazy hope alive because God has broken through into our world in the coming of Jesus and God will break through again in the power of the Holy Spirit and through God’s people, the Church. Today, we make haste to find each other to sing that hope again, to fan that spark into flame again.

Advent reminds us that our hope is never in vain. There is never an Advent where Jesus doesn’t get born. We long, hope, wait, anticipate, and we are never let down. Every year, Christmas always arrives. Even if we feel exhausted or brokenhearted, the Light of Christ always comes to the Church. Always. The final candle is always lit.

Advent and Christmas remind us that God has already broken through the darkness of sin and separation in the person of Jesus Christ. Despite the world’s pain, the dawn is well on the way.

And that is why Mary finds Elizabeth and sings her heart out, telling out her soul the greatness of the Lord. In saying yes to God, she discovers faith that looks forward. And ever since, we followers of Jesus have come together, found each other and sung our hearts out to the God who breaks in and joins us to sustain us in our living. In Jesus’ birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension, God dares us to hope big — and invites us to sing out loud.

Here is a link to the Bulletin for the 4th Sunday of Advent, 2021.

Here is a link to a video of the Sermon and the Liturgy on the 4th Sunday of Advent, 2021

Here is a link to the lessons for the 4th Sunday of Advent, 2021.