This weekend will recognize the Bottom of the Year, those days when the sun seems strangely absent and when the Powers of Darkness seem to have won. It also features the Last Sunday of Advent, the doorstep of Christ’s Incarnation. The Church is pulled between contrived jollity and more serious involvement with shepherds and magi. What words can we speak to those who watch the horizon?
The prophet Micah looks forward to those days (?) when a Davidic ruler will step forth and take back the Judean territory lost in the Assyrian wars. (5:2-5a) “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little [the smallest!] clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for [God] one who is to rule in Israel.” Notice, please, the reference to David, the youngest and smallest of Jesse’s boys; and the metaphor of little Bethlehem. Seems as though God is changing the world through that which appears insignificant.
The Hebrews passage (10:5-10) lifts up the idea that the old attempts to be Godly really haven’t worked. We’ve tried to Be Good. We’ve denied, rationalized and hidden behind our mortality. The incarnation of Christ is the tipping-point for humanity: “He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.” Steven P. Eason reminds us, “God has done something for us that we cannot do for ourselves.” (FEASTING on the WORD, C 1:86)
Luke’s Gospel is The Magnificat (1:46-55), where we encounter God’s threatening and embarrassing flip of the Order of Status Quo. The hungry love this, for they will be filled with good things. The rich hate it, for they will be sent away empty. Even before birth, Jesus brings an in-your-face notice to the powerful that things’re gonna be different! As a more recent song tells us, “There’ll Be Some Changes Made”… “This Sunday is an occasion for bold, daring, speech…which proclaims the upside-down world inaugurated by Jesus’ incarnation.” (Charles L. Campbell, op.cit.)
Many of us will hear these readings with tolerant humor, for the Old Order has prospered us. We run the risk of slipping away into tinsel and tissue, as we hear the rich imagery of these writers. Maybe, just maybe, this Christmas will be the one where our own world will turn upside down?
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
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