They Wont Be Expecting That A sermon for Advent at the Family Mass In the beginning, goes the story I think that you’ve heard, was a whole lot of nothing, except for the Word. Fast-forward a bit, there’s a man who’s called John, eating locusts and honey, with a leather belt on. “Repent,” was the title of every sermon he preached. “Prepare ye the way” was the lesson he teached. “The one who is coming is more powerful than me, the gifts of the Spirit he’ll give unto thee.” Now John knew his people, he knew they were lost; they’d forgotten how important was the river they’d crossed, when they’d wandered the desert, the hot, parched, dry sand, in search of homestead, a Promiséd Land. But some who remembered were waiting and waiting, for Messiah to come, and they were debating what kind of a king their God would send down; how sharp would his sword be; how sparkling his crown. It was war that they wanted, for they dreamt of ejecting the Romans from power, and they weren’t expecting a preacher like John to be yelling “Repent!” since it was the empire they thought should lament when Messiah came swinging his powerful sword and routed the nasty, imperial horde. For war was the way that such troubles were settled; that was the system with which no one had meddled. They expected a warrior, a general, a prince, someone who’d make all his enemies wince, as he swooped down from heaven on powerful wings and brought mighty justice with arrows and slings. There are many, you see, who thought this was God’s way, and so for a soldier to save them they’d pray. But God had other ideas on his mind; he thought of his Son: loving, gentle, and kind. To say that John’s message was quite unexpected is to say that the way things were done was rejected by God as he looked down from heaven and saw how power and money had become the new law. But these things are not of the currency of God, who accomplishes his will with the weak and the odd, like David and Abraham, like Mary and Ruth who were all poor and weak, to tell you the truth. So God called his angels, archangels together to discuss his great plan and to ask them all whether they thought he was nuts to send down his Son. And the angels declared it might be a home run! They wondered if singing would be just the thing to bring news of the birth of this cute, newborn king. They asked God for a song to express their euphoria, and he gave them the words and the tune of the “Gloria!” The wisdom, all thought, of this heavenly plan was that no one expected, not woman nor man, that God would be born as a poor, normal child, to a mother and father who were all meek and mild. “They won’t be expecting a wee, little boy it’s just as surprising as a big horse at Troy! It’ll catch them off guard, it’ll make them all think about how much you love them, no matter how much they stink. “They won’t be expecting that you’ll make yourself weak, they won’t think your first words would be just the squeak of a poor little child who can only just cry, and who’s destined to hang on a cross, and to die. “They won’t be expecting divine love to be fragile; they were wanting a prince who is strong and who’s agile. They misunderstand how God’s sacred love works; that pomp and false strength are the things that love shirks. “They won’t be expecting the valleys to rise, and the flattening mountains will be a surprise. They won’t see God coming, they’ll be caught unprepared, but hopefully no one will be really scared.” So the angels agreed, they were all right on board with the plan to disguise as a baby the Lord of heaven and earth, the great Prince of Peace who would bring to the life of the world a new lease. They smiled up at God with looks of great pleasure; they knew that for ever and always they’d treasure the sight of the baby, all pink and all fat, and they knew that the world won’t be expecting that. In this season of Advent we all get to wonder how the God of the universe, of lightning and thunder, decided to come down and make himself small, so that he could find friendship with one and with all. It’s a mystery about how the love of God works; it’s an oddness, it’s curious, it’s one of his quirks, that he came as a child; you have to admit we weren’t expecting it, no not one bit. Sean Mullen
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 15:00:33 +0000
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