Sunday Worship - Advent 3
Welcome to our Sunday worship on the fourth and final Sunday of Advent. Reverend Canon Sharon Jones, Team Rector of the Saddleworth Churches, will be preaching and presiding this morning. If you can't be with us in person, you'll find everything you need to worship from home here on this page.
The first hymn this morning tells the story of the Annunciation - "The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came"
Reflection -
Today’s Gospel is about the Annunciation - when God sent the Angel Gabriel to announce the good news to Mary that she is to be the mother of Jesus – the son of God. I am immediately reminded of one of Edith’s sermons when she asked us to imagine just how incredible this must all have been for a young teenage girl who most probably wasn’t even that well educated.
In this relatively short passage, we can see three distinct key phases that paint a fascinating insight into what Mary was going through at this important moment in history … fear and confusion, awe and wonder, then finally acceptance and compliance.
Firstly fear - it’s not every day that you sit down for quiet brew and an angel appears out of nowhere, let alone one bearing a message that you are highly favoured by God and about to bear his son. I think any one of us might go through a range of emotions from confusion and bewilderment through to fear. But when the angel Gabriel says “do not fear” it is clear that Mary does not panic or run away or even cry. You may see a parallel here with when the Angels appeared to the shepherds on the eve of the Lord’s birth.
Having listened to Gabriel’s message she starts to realise the awesome magnitude of what she has been told. As a naïve young girl, she is overcome with wonderment and awe and questions ‘how on earth can this happen?’. She was also no doubt worried about her reputation, Mary has never been intimate with a man – she is pure and a virgin. What will people say? she is betrothed to a descendant of Israel’s greatest King.
But her question, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” is not one of challenge and total disbelief, it is one of wonder, wanting to know how God will achieve this feat? This tells us much about the depth of Mary’s personal faith and belief in God - she doesn’t doubt that God can do all things – it is clear that through her faith she has moved on from ‘How on earth can this happen?’ to ‘How will God make this wonderful miracle come to pass?’
Finally, we see the humble submission and acceptance that Mary displays when she simply says ‘I am the Lord’s servant’. This sign of unquestioning compliance is in itself totally awesome. Her entire world has been turned upside down - this totally innocent teenage girl is likely to face scorn and rejection in her community and who knows how her fiancé will react?
It would surely have been wiser and easier to object and get on with the plans she had in store and the good life she had been hoping for. But yet her response is, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Her decision was – ‘Will I take the easy way and avoid the hassle?’ or ‘Will I obey and make way for the coming of the Lord?’ Or to put it another way, ‘Is my allegiance to the Lord or my personal desires?’
There are and will be many times in our own lives where we are faced with taking the easy route - to turn a blind eye to injustice or the needs of others, or instead to make the choice and take the opportunity and do something about it. Will your response be one of faith and courage like Mary? Will you say, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said."
Today's second hymn is "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence"
And today's final hymn is the joyous "Make Way!" -
