Sermon for Advent 4: Cloth for Cradle: Readings Micah 5, Luke, Hebrews
Revd. Deacon Christine Saccali – St Paul’s Athens
May God be on my lips and in all our hearts. AMEN
Her name was Miss Betts and she used to work in the pharmacy in the town in uk where I grew up. She had retired and lived near us but every day we would see her walking briskly up and down that same route with scarcely a break. She was on the move all the time, without respite and at a fair lick. The same goes for a man I see on my drive down to church and other days who parks the car at Aghios Stephanos and starts fast walking at a rapid pace past Kapandriti , where I live now, which is also some considerable distance. The same route all the time.
Today it is the fourth Sunday of Advent – how do we feel we have travelled through these four weeks of peace, hope, joy and today love? Have we rushed through without a glance not pausing on our way to Bethlehem or have we savoured the journey, reflecting as we go? If I am honest, I am dragging my feet a bit this year and plodding on. I find it odd that I don’t write and receive many Christmas cards any more and not only from dear departed family and friends That ecards have replaced the traditional ones. Call me old fashioned.
I have been reading a book entitled On the way to Bethlehem which was on my shelf. It is all about leaving baggage behind and arriving at Bethlehem, Ephrathah named in our Micah reading, unencumbered. I have found it helpful and it has helped me to pause, lighten my load and mood.
Our readings today give us focus on Bethlehem and on two pregnant women Elizabeth and Mary. Only Luke records this story and it is an extraordinary one. The encounter helps us slow down before the rush of Christmas. It is not clear why Mary early in her pregnancy would wish to see her much older cousin in mountainous Judea who was six months further ahead in an unexpected pregnancy, though one can imagine. It was a journey of some 70 miles and we are told she stayed three months.
Mary greets Elizabeth but Elizabeth’s greeting is even more extraordinary as is the reaction of the foetus in her womb who we know will become John the Baptist who we have spent a couple of Sundays thinking about. Luke is the only evangelist to give any background to John, remember. Luke is a lover of stories and songs and weaving them into his accounts along with the protagonists even women and as a doctor may be paying attention to pregnancy detail. The baby skipped the Greek word is eskirtise in the womb – think of our heart skipping a beat. A baby moving is joyous, usually, to the woman carrying it, the movement miraculous as a sign of life. I have been privileged to feel that quickening as the writer Sarah Ward entitled one of her books. I also have known the disappointment of a failed early pregnancy and infertility. And we must remember how common it is for men and women despite the great strides made in science.
