“We are Mary”
Today’s Gospel is the beautiful story of two women caught up in the mystery and wonder of God. Both are carrying sons who are divinely commissioned by God to bring about God’s purposes for the world.
Elizabeth is carrying John the Baptist, the one who will prepare the way for Jesus. And her cousin Mary, is pregnant with Jesus, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. Both are miraculous pregnancies. Elizabeth was thought to be beyond child-bearing years, and yet she and her husband are expecting a son. And Mary, her much younger, unmarried cousin, is carrying a child that she conceived after an angel announced that she would be bear God’s Son. Mary and Elizabeth are participants in God’s work of salvation, and when they meet, they are immediately aware that their lives are intertwined in a way that goes beyond their understanding.
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“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say , Rejoice.”
On this Third Sunday in Advent, there are no more fitting words than “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say , Rejoice.” Christmas is just two weeks away and we look forward to gathering on Christmas Eve for beautiful worship services, either here or with family and friends elsewhere, to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, and the coming of Christ to be with us in the flesh. There is no greater joy than that. And this afternoon, we will get a sneak preview of Christmas with our Lessons and Carols service, where we will be together with fellow Saint Georgians and with people from the larger community to experience this lovely treasure from our Anglican tradition. If you didn’t get a chance to see our Minister of Music, Dr. Ben Keseley’s, Dragon Bytes article in video form this past Thursday, I highly recommend watching it when you get home today. Ben recorded it inside the organ chamber and it’s both educational and funny. I was especially interested to learn that the first Lessons and Carols service was held in 1880 on Christmas Eve at 10 pm and was intended to keep people “out of the teeming public houses,” a.k.a. rowdy, crowded bars.
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Luke 3:1-6 2nd Sunday of Advent Rev. Lisa Hufford
his summer my husband Nick and I traveled through West Virginia for a week-long summer vacation. We entered West Virginia on highway 55 (US 48) headed toward Blackwater Falls State Park. As we drove on Rt 55, I was in awe at how flat and smooth the road was as we headed across the mountain range. The highway led us over tree covered valleys with beautiful rushing streams and rivers. As we gazed up at the mountaintops we saw hundreds of windmills that I am told power Northern Virginia. This highway through these rugged mountains, forests and streams was awe inspiring. It reminded me of the Isaiah 40 passage in our gospel reading that speaks of making a level, straight and smooth path so the glory of the Lord will be revealed.
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Hope in Uncertain Times
Wow, this has been quite the last couple of weeks! The aftermath of the presidential election has left some of our fellow Americans feeling completely elated and triumphant, and others altogether bereft and discouraged about our future as a nation. And most people in Arlington and here at Saint George’s are in the latter group. Roughly 80% of voters registered in Arlington voted for Vice-President Kamala Harris and roughly 20% voted for President-elect Trump. But whomever we voted for, whether we voted with the majority of Americans overall or whether we voted with the majority of people in Arlington, we can all agree that this is the most consequential election of our lifetimes to date. When people are having a hard time agreeing on much of anything right now, we can all generally agree about that, whichever political perspective we are speaking from, that this election signals a major shift in direction. There will be a lot of changes and yet we do not know for sure what initiatives will come to fruition. There is so much uncertainty right now and human beings do not deal very well with uncertainty. So it is especially important for us to be reminded of how we are called to live as Christians during this time. And our reading from Hebrews today has a lot of wisdom to offer us.
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For All the Saints
Today is All Saints Sunday, the day in the church year when we focus on what it means to be knit together in the communion of saints. We are reminded today that we live our lives in the here and now mindful of all the faithful people who have gone before us. Those people are still with us as our heavenly cheerleaders, encouraging us and helping us onward. Today I am mindful of faithful Saint Georgians who have died. I remember seeing them at church every Sunday and hearing what was going on in their lives. I can still see where they sat, and recall the ministries they served in. I remember visiting them and sharing communion when they weren’t able to be in church anymore. I really miss them but take comfort in knowing that they are with us still. I am also aware of family members, my grandparents, my father, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law. You may be mindful of people in your own life who have died. Even if it has been a while, their memory is still alive, and not only that, they are very much alive in a spiritual sense. Every Sunday in the Eucharistic Prayer we praise God with the angels, archangels and all the company of heaven. They are the company of heaven , all those who we love but see no longer, and that is a comforting and empowering thought.
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Seeing and Believing
While reading Mark, I sometimes wonder if sight is overrated. Generally we regard sight as the most valuable of the senses. Some 2,400 years ago, the philosopher Aristotle ranked the five senses in hierarchical order, and praised sight as the most noble of them all. No doubt he was influenced by his teacher, Plato, who wrote that sight was the foundation of all knowledge in a work called Timaeus, which some biblical scholars associate with our Bartimaeus, the blind beggar in today’s Gospel lesson, whose name literally means ‘Son of Timaeus.’ This is possibly an ironic head nod to the wisdom of an unsighted man overturning the wisdom of a man praising sight.
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