Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent, 10:30am service
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches”
Two figures dominate the spiritual landscape of Advent. They are John the Baptist and Mary, the Mother of our Lord. Together they illuminate something of the meaning of Advent for us. The one points to Christ; the other carries the hope of the world in her womb. Nothing can come to birth in us unless their complementary yet contrasting attitudes to Christ are realised in our lives.
John the Baptist calls us to repentance. He calls us to a fundamental change of outlook, a new orientation, a constant metanoia, which is nothing less than a radical transformation of attitude requiring renunciation and repudiation; in short, a resolute ‘no’ to the world. Mary calls us to a willing acceptance of the one who comes. “Be it unto me according to thy Word.” Her ‘yes’ to God embodies the very nature of faith itself.
The Word made flesh comes to birth through her because that Word now fully defines her being. It marks an ever deepening understanding of the Mystery to which she so completely gives herself. It is borne out of her faithful hearing, her constant attentiveness to the Word and Son of God.
These two figures recall us to the profounder principles of our spiritual identity. They challenge us about our engagement with the world, to be sure, but without being taken captive by either the rhetoric of an idealised future or the rhetoric of an idealised past. They recall us to God in the motions of his love towards us. Let him who has an ear “hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.” In a way, as Augustine remarks somewhere, “the Scriptures are like letters from home,” perhaps, even emails, we might say; they remind us of who we are essentially and spiritually.
