C Cycle – 4^th Sunday of Advent 24

Lk. 1:39-45

Paul in his letter to the Hebrews tells us plainly what Jesus desires from each of us and it is not offerings and sacrifices.  Those things satisfy the requirements of the law and held us in check until God fulfilled His promise to redeem us and transform us.  Jesus was sent for the forgiveness of our sins and the Holy Spirit was sent to transform our hearts.  If your Advent was what you expected or if it was not what you expected it is never too late to take fifteen minutes to reflect on what God desires which is according to Paul, “…a body prepared for Him.” 

What are we to reflect on during those fifteen minutes?  Paul repeats what Jesus revealed to him, which is Jesus offering Himself up for our offering.  One sacrifice for all time.  What is our response to this gift?  It should not be a continuing dependence on sacrifices and offerings.  It should be an embracing the gift of our own will to do the will of the one who sacrifices everything for us to become what God intended us to be from the beginning of creation.  If we would acknowledge that through His sacrifice, taking on our humanity to suffer, bleed and die was God’s plan to restore us we might see how futile our sacrifices are compared to His. 

That moment of reflection would help us reorient ourselves to offer another kind of sacrifice. A sacrifice of surrender and acknowledgment our need to embrace dependency on the Holy Spirit.  Mary’s response to the words of Elizabeth offers us insights of what happens when we surrender to God’s will for our holiness. 

In those fifteen minutes of reflection, preparing for the birth of Jesus let us begin by asking the same question Elizabeth posed to Mary.  How is it that the Lord should visit me?  How is it that the Holy Spirit should overshadow me? How is it that something is stirring within me compelling me to acknowledge is I am having a response to Jesus’s presence.  A stirring that compels me to echo Mary’s fiat.  My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.  For the Lord has done great things for me and Holy is His name. 

He has by His birth, life, death, and resurrection fulfilled the promise of God our Father and His mercies will endure as long as life endures.   

It really is simple to feel those words swelling up from within us and expressing them as if they sum up all God’s desires us to know about who we are and who He is.  Take those fifteen minutes and invite the Holy Spirit to touch your heart and transform it as God promised to remove our stony hearts and give us new hearts that yearn for God. Come Lord Jesus Come.