Sermon for Advent Ember Wednesday
“Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son,
and shalt call his name JESUS”
Mary in Advent is Mary in Holy Waiting. She carries the hope of the world in her womb and never more poignantly and more expectantly than at this time. She is heavy with the weight of divinity, we might say.
And yet, how providentially marvelous and theologically appropriate, a kind of condignity of the Spirit, that in the Advent season we are reminded of her Annunciation (not to mention her conception, immaculate or otherwise) as preparation for the meaning of Christ’s nativity. And even more so, on the Advent Ember days. The Ember seasons remind us of the office of the ministry of the Church which shapes and informs all our ministries, lay and cleric alike. Each Ember season, though roughly analogous to the seasons of nature’s year, have an additional spiritual quality, a point of emphasis, if you will. That emphasis in the Advent Ember days is on the theme of Peace in the World and the readings are to be understood in that context.
How amazing. The readings from the prophet Micah and the Annunciation Gospel from Luke are given an interpretative framework. They are to be seen in terms of the theme of Peace in the World. This should give us pause, both generally and particularly. More generally, because it should alert us to how the Eucharistic readings are to be read and understood according to a thematic theme and purpose, an interpretative matrix, as it were. The important question, the only question, really, is about the themes. And however much it has been overlooked, denied and ignored, the inescapable reality of the Eucharistic lectionary is that it is ordered according to the principles of creedal doctrine and reinforces, especially, though not uniquely for Anglicans, the close connection between Scripture and Creed. It is a catholic principle, universal in its scope and as belonging undeniably and inescapably to both the traditions of Roman Catholicism and, at the very least, the churches of the magisterial Reformation.
More particularly, it locates the Annunciation within the season of Advent in terms of the radical message of the preparation for the Lord’s coming among us both as the Babe of Bethlehem and as the Judge of all creation. In each case, the challenge for us is to be Marian, open to the Divine Word and yielding intelligently the whole of our being to God.
