Fourth Sunday of Advent: We conceive Christ through his Word

There is a scene (in later in the Gospel of Luke) where Jesus’ mother and brothers come to join him.

 He was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they wish to see you.”  The Lord replied, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” Lk. 8:20-21

What makes us wonderful in God’s eyes? Those who hear the word of God and do something about it. Mary is the best example of the one who hears the word of God and keeps it.  Because she hears the word of God and acts on it, going to see Elizabeth in today’s gospel, is why Jesus claims her as his mother. Being Christ’s mother, father, sister and brother is more than biological. We become family when we hear God's Word and act on it. Consider the story of the Incarnation of God in human history.
 
God works through the insignificant 
Thus says the LORD:


“You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah
too small to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel;”
Mi. 5:1 

Bethlehem, like the nation of Israel, was a small insignificant reality in the world. Out of Bethlehem and Israel’s smallness would rise a mighty and wondrous shepherd whose gospel would go to the farthest reaches of our planet.
 
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth seems unimportant, but is pregnant with meaning. Both pregnant with the possibilities of the future. It is a seemingly insignificant, every-day event. It is the way God chooses to work. In God’s story there are pregnant women who don’t know what the future holds. There are men who don’t know what the future holds, but trust the women they love and provide for them. Caesars, Kings and Warriors are just background to God’s story.
 
Faith grows silently and in quiet
For each of us faith, God’s work in us, is like an unborn child; a fragile reality. The medieval thought of Mary conceiving through her ear because she heard about God’s word, conveyed by Gabriel, and she through that Word and her Fiat, acquiescence, to God’s initiative. God’s growth in us is like being a mother. Faith makes demands upon the ego, time, plans and privacy of the mother. Like a mother caring a child in her body, you cannot think of yourself alone. Like pregnancy, birth and raising a child, faith is a process.

• Conception: Faith is conceived in us by first hearing God’s word. The Word, Christ, must take root in us if he is to grow.
• Gestation: Then, like any woman who's pregnant, we must lovingly gestate, nurture, and protect the faith and hope growing inside us. Our mother’s pregnancy was accompanied by nausea, morning sickness, and a stretching of the flesh that scarred her body. Growth in faith also has struggles and leaves marks. That growth, however, is the presence of God in us.
• Birth: What has been nurtured inside of us must be given birth outside. Helping others grown in faith, especially your children, is like being a midwife. The midwife removes obstacles, coaches and supports. The mother must do the work by cooperating with God’s initiative.
• Nurturing: Mary spent years nurturing and coaxing Jesus into adulthood. The babe in the manger is not yet the Christ who teaches, heals and dies on the cross. His life is pregnant with that future. Every parent gives birth twice. Once biologically; second, by helping the child become who God made them to be.
• Adulthood: St. Paul said, 

“ When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.  So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Cor. 13:11-13.

Our growth in charity is the presence of the indwelling God in our persons. St. Paul also said, “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Gal. 2:20.

"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Lk. 1:42
Mary conceived the redemption of the world because she listened to God’s messenger and conceived her Son. She silently nurtured him and helped him into adulthood. She is the example of how faith grows in us. God works in ways that seem insignificant and unimportant. Our purposes that are not rooted in God are, in the end, what is unimportant and left in the past. Christmas is a busy time. The noise seems to work against the purposes of God. This season, look for God in the most surprising, unexpected place.