From Caroline - [email protected], 01285 712467

Readings for Sunday: Micah 5.2-5a; Hebrews 10.5-10; Luke 1.39-45

On this fourth Sunday in Advent, our attention turns to Mary, the woman chosen by God to carry and give birth to his only-begotten Son, Jesus. It is such an enormous thing to think about, when we give ourselves space to reflect, how it must feel to be the woman who carries the saviour of the world to birth.

Pregnancy is already a wonderful, terrifying, life-changing thing. Carrying a little life inside you, and being the one to feed and provide for and to grow that life is nothing short of miraculous. And it feels so precarious as well. You’re so aware of all the ways in which it can go wrong. I always think back to those first 12 weeks of pregnancy, where you just don’t tell people you’re pregnant, because if you’re going to lose that growing life, that is the most likely time for it to happen. Everything is new and strange and scary as anything.

And then, on top of all that, to know that this isn’t just your child, he’s God’s child. He’s going to change the Universe! Mary must have been beyond overwhelmed. Is it any surprise that she takes herself away from everyone and hides up in the hill country with her incredibly understanding cousin?

But in the middle of all this overwhelming stuff, Elizabeth gives Mary what she really needs, which is a reminder that this event, as world-shifting as it is, is a blessing. Jesus is a blessing for Mary, for Elizabeth, for the child Elizabeth is carrying, and for the world. And what’s more, Mary is to be a blessing as well. She is playing a vital role in bringing to the world the one the world has been waiting so long to meet. She’s not just having all of this dropped on her – she is playing an active role, the one who ‘believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord’, who said yes when God asked this of her.

Today, we are given a chance to give thanks for the blessing that Mary is, and continues to be, in fulfilment of God’s promise, and to reflect on how God continues to call each of us, in our different ways, to be blessings to the world and the people around us. Perhaps we aren’t asked to do anything as amazing as to carry God’s child into the world, but we are asked to be at work in the world nevertheless. We are people of hope, and light, and promise, and we can show and work for that with our words, with our actions, with the way we carry ourselves in the world.

As Mary is a blessing, so may we be, for the world and the people around us.

Happy Christmas to you all!

Rev’d Caroline

Morning Prayer on Zoom and Facebook will resume after Caroline’s post-Christmas break – so we’ll begin again in the week beginning 6th January.