On December 20th, the fourth Sunday of Advent, Tim Reardon spoke to  Luke 1:46-55 — a passage that finds the angel Gabriel bringing God’s good news to a virgin, Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph, of David’s house.

Do not fear! These are the angel’s words to Mary. Do not fear! When you hear this what comes to mind. Does it fill you with a strength and assurance? Or maybe you just think of all the things there are to fear!

But there is so much to fear! So much to anticipate! Something is coming. Something has already come. Change is on the horizon. Change is already overwhelming us.

When the angel’s words come to her, what does Mary hear? Mary’s world was also unsettled and unsettling, living as she did under Roman occupation. Her song, praising God who turns the world upside down, shows us that she is well aware of the injustices of the world around her.

Our world has certainly left us with plenty to fit the category of “fear,” so many things to be unsettled by, the pandemic only highlights this. We don’t need to create a hierarchy of unsettledness and fears this morning, but we can recognize that we all come with our own hopes and fears.

Mary, knows this world, unsettling and unjust, and amid it she comes with a message of disruptive joy. Not a complacent joy designed to make us think things are alright when they are not, not a sentimental and consumer joy so often peddled during the Christmas season, but joy at the vision of a new world, a new life breaking forward, a world where the God of justice and peace works by God’s mighty arm, filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty, pulling the powerful down from their thrones and lifting the lowly.

Hear more of Tim’s advent words, and a current story of a mother in exile.

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