Promises, Promises!

  In today’s first reading the prophet, Micah announces the great promise of God: that the small tribe which settled in the insignificant town of Bethlehem will one day produce the ruler of Israel. But between that promise and its fulfillment, there is a long interim period of destruction, suffering, and exile. When your country is overrun and you are dumped in a strange land, when your songs are unsung and your musical instruments are in storage, it’s difficult to hold on to a promise, even when that is the promise of God. But it’s precisely that promise that gives substance to the hope of the people and gives a direction to their lives. At the end of the exile the remnant, who still believe, return to rebuild their lives in the hope that God will indeed keep his promises.

  At the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, we are introduced to an aged, married couple who stay alive on that hope, Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. They represent the hope that did not die, and they see it fulfilled in their son, John, who is to prepare for the one from Bethlehem. It is the fulfilled hope of that old couple which is given to Mary as a sign: ‘’know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son…. For nothing is impossible to God’’ (Luke 1:36-37). Mary hurries to see this sign of a hope fulfilled. In the meeting of the old Elizabeth and the young Mary the Old Testament meets the New Testament, the ancient promise meets its fulfillment in two mothers; Elizabeth, the mother of the last great prophet who will go before the Lord, and Mary, the mother of the Lord himself. It is a time of good news, of great blessing; it is a time for womb-shaking rejoicing. The old promises are new events, and now is the time of their long-awaited fulfillment. It’s a great time!

  It is through Mary that God is seen to keep the promise announced through the prophet Micah so long ago. The promise of God will take flesh in her and be formed in the person of Jesus. In today’s Gospel Mary is blessed for believing ‘’that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled’’. In Mary, we can see that God doesn’t just make promises but keeps them. In Mary we can see someone who allows the promise of God to shape her whole life - not in a passive way, but because she says ‘’yes’’ to the promise happening in her.

  The promise has a name: Jesus. He will fulfill all that has gone before and give new meaning to all that will happen after him. He stands at the very center of time - BC and AD - and he is the one who stands at the very center of our lives.

  At Christmas, we celebrate the great event that Jesus is the kept promise of God. He comes to us again as a gift of the Father and invites us to have the confidence to make a few promises ourselves. Like Christmas, we are a people of promises, and God holds fast to the words of promise we have made him. As Advent close, we thank God for keeping his word to us, and ask him to help us keep our word to him and each other. As W.H. Auden wrote: ‘’Words are for those with promises to keep’’