K. Dean Myers, interim pastor
Fairmount Presbyterian Church
Sunday, December 18, 2011 Fourth Sunday of Advent

Scripture Readings:
2 Samuel 7:1-13
Luke 1:26-33
Luke 1:46-55
Romans 16:25-27

Introduction to the Readings

  • All four of today’s lectionary selections revolve around the NT claim that Jesus is “son of David,” Israel’s most successful and best remembered king.
    1. Samuel 7 tells that when David determined that God should live in “a house of cedar” rather than in a tent in Jerusalem, God said, “no” through the prophet Nathan. Instead, God would make David and his family into “a house forever.”  David would father a family line that would never end, sustained by God’s steadfast, covenantal love.
    2. Early church – authors of the gospels – saw Jesus as the fulfillment of Nathan’s promise to David.  In Luke 1, Mary, engaged to “Joseph, of the line of David,” hears the promise that “the Lord God will give [her son] the throne of his ancestor David.”
    3.  Mary’s song that follows that announcement – known as “the Magnificat” – celebrates not only her selection as the mother of God-with-us, but also the power her son will wield to turn this world upside down.  He will do the justice that Israel’s kings did not often do.  We will sing a contemporary setting of Mary’s Magnificat instead of hearing it read to us.
    4. Finally, the Romans passage – Paul’s last words in that great theological letter – praises God for the “revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages” – namely, that Jesus came to rule not Israel only, but all the Gentiles, people everywhere who live “the obedience of faith.”
  • Today’s four passages offer a singular witness to Jesus, king of kings and lord of lords from before time into all time.

2 Samuel 7:1-13

1Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.’ 3Nathan said to the king, ‘Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.’

4 But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: 5Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? 6I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. 7Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ 8Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; 9and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 10And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. 12When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.

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Luke 1:26-33

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’

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Luke 1:46-55 (Hymn #600)

46And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
51He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
53he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
54He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
55according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

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Romans 16:25-27

25 Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages 26but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— 27to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever! Amen.

I

  1. And the reason for all that Son of David/God with us for all people, even the despised “Gentiles”? The reason is Love; Love in our flesh and blood; Love incarnate.
    1. Four Advent Sunday themes lead to this one: hope, peace, joy, love.
    2. Each is important: each could be the main point on which all the others turn.
      1. Have any one of them, you have all the others.
      2. Lack any one of them, all the others suffer.
    3. But in the Bible only one of them is equated with God: love.
      1. James: “God is love.”
      2. Love as God is the center of all centers.
      3. If we have that love, we have hope and peace and joy as well.
      4. Apart from that love, hope, peace and joy will likely always elude us.

II

A. “Love came down at Christmas…”

  1. Christina Rosetti’s language is archaic and dated, because it depends upon a three-story conception of the universe: heaven above, hell below, earth in between: “Love came down at Christmas…”

B. Modern physics might be more helpful.

  1. According to the late Judy Cannato, from whom I once tried to receive some spiritual direction and pretty much failed, but it wasn’t her fault, scientists tell us that “only one half of one per cent of the universe is tangible,” (in Living in Radical Amazement, Dec, 2008)
  2. The rest is Dark Matter, Dark Energy, which Judy suggests is “a holy darkness that is fecund with possibility and promise.”  (ibid.)
  3. Maybe we should say, “love emerged at Christmas” – what’s all around us anyway came out of that darkness to live in our tangible, sensible world, to live “enfleshed” with us, if you will.
  4. Some even consider the darkness around that we cannot see with our eyes to be God, and suggest that modern science therefore opens a way to prove God’s existence, or that faith might impose its truths on science’s.
  5.  Interesting, but it doesn’t account for…

C. “Love came down at Christmas!”

  1. From somewhere outside of what we can see or only imagine or mathematically postulate, Love came to us because Love willed to come to us in the birth of a child.
  2. So we can see, as we’ve never seen before, what Love really looks like and how Love really behaves,
  3. In the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.

D. Love is Christmas’s “given” – it is a gift which we cannot make, earn, or barter for ourselves, even with all of our considerable human skills and smarts.

  1. It is all around us, but it is often invisible even to ourselves, even in ourselves, as we push and rush and defend and protect and isolate ourselves and condemn and lament and judge others by standards devoid of love.
  2. We turn Love into romanticism or sex or cold-hearted legalism or “if it feels good, do it” or into excuses for not paying attention to those closest to us.
  3. We make love more complicated than it is, and thus turn it into something it isn’t.

III

A. The love of God is so simple, so profound, so real and pervasive when we know we are loved by God and let Love guide us.

  1. Several years ago David Redding, retired pastor of Liberty Presbyterian Church of Columbus, was subject of a column by Mike Harden in the Columbus Dispatch.
    1. In addition to being a busy pastor and writer, he’d spent a lot of time away from home, so that home often felt like little more than “the other half of his plane ticket.”
    2. Then Redding’s wife of 57 years died while he was away from home.
    3. Perhaps as a witness to what he risked losing by being too busy to love his family, Redding had written a new book about how children love. in it he notes that Picasso once said that “it took him four years to learn to paint like Rafael but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Oh, to love like that!
    4. Redding sums up his search for love: “These days, I’m not interested in what a Ph.D. has to say.  I want to know what a child thinks…most professed Christians could learn a thing or two about spirituality and unfettered love by watching children.” (Is that what that do for us in worship?)
    5. Sounds like something Jesus said, doesn’t it? “Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
  2. Watch the child, this child, the holy child to learn what we must know about spirituality and unfettered love.

B. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, has written: “Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.”  (on an undated card produced by the Sisters of Joseph, Baden, PA)

  1. Quibble (with a Jesuit?) is that we don’t find God or love except as they are first given to us. But having quibbled that, Fr. Arrupe’s statement is powerful on this Sunday of Advent’s love:

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, that is,
than falling in love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you will do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read,
who you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love,
Stay in Love,
and it will decide
EVERYTHING.”

C. Whether God’s Love came down or emerged at Christmas matters little, what matters is that God’s love overwhelms us, in Christ, at Christmas.  Fall in Love, Stay in Love…it will decide everything!  Amen.

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