Sermon on Luke 1:57-80

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Our Advent theme this year is A Weary World Rejoices, a line from the beloved Christmas carol “O Holy Night,” because there is a lot of weariness in the world, even after almost a full year of focusing on Sabbath in this congregation.

Each week, we’ll ponder one of God’s promises.This week is the promise of compassion.

During this season, we understandably focus on Jesus’ birth and the journeys of Mary and Joseph as they prepare to welcome their new heavenly family member.

But Elizabeth and Zechariah’s journeys are remarkable as well. And for them, probably equally as overwhelming.

Mary’s cousin Elizabeth hadn’t been able to have children until her husband, Zechariah, who was a priest, was visited by a divine messenger. He apparently doubted the angel, who told him that because of his lack of trust he wouldn’t be able to speak until the child was born.

No one’s life was going as expected. Elizabeth and Zechariah hadn’t had a baby when they expected, and now when they were at the point where Zechariah was wondering how this was physically possible—an angel comes with a baby announcement!

And Mary and Joseph certainly weren’t expecting to raise the Child of God before they were even married.

Their lives were not going the way they expected.

But, despite the challenges these new futures held, God’s vision for them was greater and more wonderful than they had expected.

Mary visited Elizabeth, whose baby jumped for joy inside her. And Mary was inspired to sing what has become known as the Magnificat—a song magnifying God. We’ll take a closer look at that two weeks from now.

But there’s a song for today, too. Our reading picks up when baby John was born. Suddenly, Zechariah was able to speak again, and not only did he speak: he sang! He joined the ranks of Hannah, Miriam, Mary, and later Simeon to sing God’s praise in a moment of joy, wonder, and trust in God’s promises.

Though the lives of the people in these stories were not going as planned, God was creating a future more wonderful than they dreamed. God became human in Jesus to bring compassion to the world.

Of course, we know that Jesus’ life and death included pain and humiliation. The fulfillment of God’s promises still involved suffering.

Our lives often go in directions we don’t expect, like the people in our stories, andit’s not always in ways that make us want to sing God’s praises.

We experience loss, pain, grief, confusion, and any number of other forms of suffering. Sometimes our lives change in an instant. Sometimes it’s a slow fade until we hardly recognize ourselves. Sometimes it feels like suffering is all around us.

But that’s what God’s promises are about. God promises compassion.

The word “compassion” means “suffering with.” When we talk of Christ’s Passion, we’re remembering that God loves us so much that God became human in Jesus to live alongside us in the world’s suffering. He endured the cross, suffering with all humanity and experiencing all the pain this world contains.

When God promises compassion, God promises to suffer with us. God is with us whatever our circumstances, holding us, weeping with us, and never abandoning us.

Advent is the anticipation of God’s compassion revealing itself through Emmanuel, God with us.

We can hold onto God’s promise of compassion, because God was willing to become one of us to experience all of life’s joys and suffering alongside us. God knows the full breadth of human experience and loves us in it and through it. And in the fullness of the Reign of God, there will be no more suffering—only complete union with God forever.

In the meantime, we can let that compassion fill us and overflow into the world around us as we do our best to love our neighbors as God loves us, opening our arms to the world.

Receive this “Blessing for Open Arms” from Kate Bowler:

Blessed are you with open arms

to welcome God this Advent,

willing to invite its promises

into the center of your longing.

Blessed are you,

even now in the waiting.

Open to receiving what is beautiful

though clothed in such precarity.

Blessed are you,

agreeing to stand still long enough

to let your eyes adjust to the darkness

until the starlight begins to appear,

the dawning of God’s promises.

In that gentle light,

find a corner of your heart

where hope can stay protected.

A place from which we can

nurture a little gratitude,

a little compassion,

enough to go around.

Some for God and some for yourself.

And some for the next unsuspecting

soul that wanders into your light.