22 December, Advent 4
Readings: Micah 5.2-5a; Hebrews 10.5-10; Luke 1.39-55
Theme: Promise and Fulfilment
In this new liturgical year, which we begin each year on the first Sunday in Advent, the gospel of St Luke will accompany us throughout, with some exceptions. We will have the whole year, with occasional breaks, studying the gospel of Luke. As I have mentioned in previous sermons, the gospel writers are each portrait painters who depict the life of Jesus in their own ways. This is doubly true in the case of St Luke, because as well as the tradition of St Luke being a doctor, he is also often depicted as an icon painter. So, what is the portrait of Jesus that we get this week from our readings?
For Luke, Jesus is the one who redeems Israel. He is the one who fulfils the promises made in the scriptures that Israel would be redeemed from its captivity and sufferings. As the first reading from the prophet Micah expresses it, ‘from you (O Bethlehem), shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel’. At last, the long awaited time has come to an end. The one whom Israel has been awaiting is now at hand and he will bring peace to the ends of the earth. The Hebrew Bible is soaked in these references to the one who will come and redeem his people and it is in this light that the gospel of St Luke shines his own particular perspective on the person and mission of Jesus. For Luke, Jesus is the one who fulfils the promises made through the covenant to redeem Israel: ‘He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever’. For this reason, the core attitude characterizing the gospel of Luke is not so much obedience, as joy. Jesus is the joy of his people because in him, redemption is at hand.
So, it is good to be aware how the gospel of Luke re-reads and interprets the scriptures of Israel. It is as if in each and every passage of Luke, there are echoes of the scriptures of Israel, which would have set bells ringing in the ears of the early disciples, who were steeped in these Old Testament texts. It is because of this that the so-called Magnificat of Mary would have been so reminiscent of Old Testament passages such as the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2.1-10, Psalm 113. 7-9 and Isaiah 41. 8-9. And central to each of these texts, as St Luke re-reads them in his own versions, is the fact that this redeemer is Jesus. Jesus is the Lord, YHWH, spoken of in the Old Testament and this means that in him, God has indeed visited his people, ‘like the dawn from on high’.
Yet, as well as visiting his people, this Lord, this Jesus is also the one who will inaugurate the great reversal that is so powerfully proclaimed by the canticle of Mary. He is the one who will bring down the powerful from their thrones and raise up the lowly. He is the one who will fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty. He is the very embodiment of the Jubilee Year of the Old Testament which occurred every fiftieth year to restore land and property to those from whom it had been taken. This promise, that someone will arise in the midst of the people to redeem them, is now fulfilled in Jesus for the gospel of St Luke. This is why St Luke is so attentive to historical detail in his narration of events, because he wants to ensure that the reader is fully aware that the past of Israel is being fulfilled in the present, and that all of the scriptures have been alluding to him, as those with attention to historical detail can now see. The divine plan for Israel and for the gentiles is fulfilled in Jesus, and the church which will act as the new Israel, to share both this light of revelation for the gentiles and for the sake of the glory of Israel, God’s own chosen people.
This is why when Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth there is a pre-natal recognition by John the Baptist of Jesus. The child leaping in her womb is an echo of the exaltation of Hannah at the birth of Samuel in the First Book of Samuel, because this rejoicing is a sign of recognition that the redemption of Israel is coming, firstly through the prophetic witness of Samuel to the emergence of kingship in Israel, which will bring stability after a period of rule by unstable charismatic judges, and now through the advent of the messiah, Jesus the Son of David and the true King of Israel. This redeemer of Israel will bring to completion the undulating story of Israel; an Israel that had been waiting for a long time for true peace and stability. Now in the advent of the messiah, these scriptural promises played out through the covenantal agreements between God and Abraham and Noah, through the prophetic witnesses of those such as Samuel, Isaiah and Micah, and through the giving of the Law to Moses have all been fulfilled in Jesus. Israel will now be a light to the nations which gives it its true glory as the prophetic witness for all peoples that the redemption first brought to Israel is now to be shared with all without distinction. The universality of this message, a New Testament characteristic which St Luke shares with St Paul, is a breaking forth of this redemption beyond the bounds of the tribes of Israel. Elizabeth is the one who, like Hannah, recognizes this breaking forth of redemption in the womb of Mary and acknowledges that Mary is the one who realizes and believes that the promises made to Israel are now being fulfilled in her.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.