by CCW | 14 December 2025 10:00
There are two outstanding biblical figures in the spiritual landscape of Advent. They are John the Baptist and Mary, Virgin and Mother. They come together on this day and week in the progress of Advent and in wonderful ways complement one another. On the Advent wreath, the rose or pink candle is lit in remembrance of Mary’s role in the coming of Christ.
Monday just passed was the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a commemoration that has always been part of the Prayer Book calendar since 1549. Though not mentioned in the Scripture, it belongs to the theology of the Incarnation and complements the Advent Ember Day Gospel of the story of the Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary. The reading of that Gospel in Advent concentrates simply on the angelic announcement and not on Mary’s verbal response. Yet these two moments – her conception and Annunciation – belong to her role and purpose in Christ’s Incarnation.
Her conception is about her coming to be even as the Annunciation looks back to the first moment of Christ’s Incarnation – his being conceived in her womb. Her Annunciation is his Conception! The Gospel reading at the very least reminds us of her Annunciation through her fiat mihi, her ‘yes’ to God and as such teaches what belongs to the real truth and meaning of our humanity and life in prayer: “Be it unto me according to thy word.”
But that, too, is the point of the ministry of John the Baptist in today’s Gospel. He is in prison owing to the machinations of Herod’s wife, Herodias, who seeks his annihilation. His being in prison is another form of the darkness of Advent and yet points us to the light of Christ. In the marvel of revelation, Jesus speaks to the multitudes concerning John with a barrage of recurring questions. “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” “What went ye for to see?” And again, “What went ye out for to see?” All this calls attention to the ministry of John the Baptist. Only then does he tell us his real significance: he is at once a prophet and more than a prophet.
Jesus points us to John the Baptist who points out Jesus to us next Sunday as “the Lamb of God”. John the Baptist’s ministry as the Evensong lesson makes clear is a ministry of preaching a baptism of water for repentance. His message is the Advent mantra: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He bids the Pharisees and Sadducees to “bear fruit that befit repentance.” But more importantly, he points to the coming of one, he says, who is “mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry;” one who “will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire” and in whose hand is the winnowing fork that will separate the wheat from the chaff.
Jesus comes to John the Baptist for him to baptize him in the Jordan. It is the setting for the revelation of God as Trinity, the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lightning upon Jesus, and the Father’s voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” All this belongs to the ministry of John in preparing the way of the Lord as the prophet who stands at the moment of the fulfillment of all prophecy. With Mary and with John the Baptist the common thread of meaning lies in what comes to them and defines them and, indeed, defines the ministry of the Church itself.
But there is another way in which Mary and John the Baptist converge and complement one another in the mystery of Advent. Both belong to Advent as the season of questions. Today we hear in the Gospel John the Baptist’s question to Christ even as next week we will hear the questions of the Priests and Levites from Jerusalem about who he is and his response, known as the witness or the confession of John the Baptist. But here his voice from the darkness of prison is a question to Jesus sent by way of his disciples. “Art thou he that should come or do we look for another?”, he asks.
And Mary? We do not hear her verbal question that belongs to the Annunciation story: “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man.” But we learn of her inward questioning in response to the Angelic message. “The angel came in unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee.” Luke tells us that “she was troubled at this saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.” Why is this important? Because it means that she is not a passive conduit for the coming of Christ. She is engaged. The conception of Christ by the holy Spirit, as we confess in the Creed, is not deception, nor mere reception ,as Lancelot Andrewes puts it, but conception, the active yielding and giving of the substance of herself and being to the will of God. Christ is “incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,” as the Creed puts it, “made very man of the substance of the Virgin Mary his mother; and that without spot of sin” as the proper preface at Christmas states in a wonderfully cogent and theological way.
What this day and week reminds us is her active engagement with the will and purpose of God for the redemption of our humanity. As such she embodies the true and full meaning of our humanity considered in itself in its truth and purpose. How? By being defined by the Word of God, our Creator and Redeemer, or more fully yet by the Holy Trinity. John the Baptist points us to Christ. Mary gives birth to Christ and Christ in us by the yielding and giving of herself to him who is the Alpha and Omega. She signals the very nature of our humanity as made for God, as capax dei. For both John and Mary that means the desire to know and understand what God reveals.
John the Baptist’s ministry complements this by way of the necessity of repentance based upon a deep understanding of human sin and wickedness, of ignorance and folly, the acknowledgement of which is essential to redemption. With both Mary and John the Baptist we see the complete acknowledgement of God’s will for our salvation. In many ways, the Advent pageant is the pageant of questions that signal the form of our active engagement with the will of God, of faith seeking understanding.
Jesus’s response to the question of John the Baptist and to Mary’s wonderings in her mind provides a wonderful picture of redemption in the restoration of our fallen humanity through get things which we “do see and hear”: “the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and”, if that were not enough, just consider, “the poor have the Gospel preached to them.” And so we do.
Fr. David Curry
Advent III, 2025
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