4th Sunday of Advent – Year C
Zephaniah 3:14-18a; Isaiah 12:2-3, 4, 5-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18
Today, December 20th, is the Fourth Sunday of Advent,
but for my family, December 20th is always first and foremost
the birthday of my sister, Erin, the youngest of the three Folan children.
I am the oldest, and my brother, Kevin,
is just less than three years my junior.
I have absolutely no recollection of life before Kevin.
I like to think that’s because, for me,
life started to be worth remembering once Kevin came along.
Now, Erin is eight years younger than I am,
and so I remember lots of things that happened before she was born.
In fact, I remember quite well what happened at almost this very hour
exactly 29 years ago today.
My brother and I were sitting in the living room of our Long Island home,
playing with He-Man figures or something like that,
when our front door burst open, and my dad strode into the house,
announcing, “Guys, you have a baby sister. Her name is Erin.”
My first reaction was to wonder what sort of a name this was.
My only association with it came from school,
when one of my teachers would occasionally ask me
to do something outside the classroom for her.
“Peter, I need you to run an errand for me…”
On Long Island, you see, those two words –
“Erin” and “errand” –
are pronounced the same way.
I’m sure I asked when we would get to see Erin,
on what day my mom would be coming home,
and whether or not we would be having pizza for dinner.
Two or three minutes after the big announcement,
my brother and I were back at He-Man again,
hoping that we would be getting
garlic knots with the pizza.
It is only as I am older that I recognize how saturated with significance
that moment of announcement was,
both for my brother and me, and for my dad.
My dad walked through the door to deliver what was,
up to that point in our lives, the absolutely best news we had ever heard.
It is still one of the great messages we have ever received.
“Guys, you have a baby sister.”
What we could not possibly have known at the time
was that we were learning of the birth of one of our dearest friends,
someone who still draws love out of us the way that few others do,
someone who would accompany us, and whom we would accompany,
through all of our lives’ most important events.
That night, the phrase, “Guys, you have a baby sister” was good news, it was gospel, for us.
And what must that have been like for my dad?
I see him in my mind’s eye – I am now just one year younger than he would have been then;
there he is, pulling into the driveway, scurrying out of the car,
bounding up our front steps, rushing into the house.
I see a man who was going to pop if he did not shout out
that good news, that gospel of, “Guys, you have a baby sister.”
Many of you, no doubt, have had the chance to be an evangelist in this way.
What a privilege that must be.
I share with you this extended reflection of an event on December 20, 1986,
because today’s gospel reading, the gospel reading of December 20, 2015,
sees both of these roles – being the receiver of good news,
and being the proclaimer of good news –
converge in the Blessed Mother.
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And today, December 20 , four nights before
we faithful will come joyful and triumphant to Bethlehem,
today is the day when the Lord enlists us
to be receivers and proclaimers of the good news, of the Gospel.
“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth” (Lk. 1:39-40).
We might be tempted to think that Mary’s trip to see Elizabeth,
a trip she made in haste,
was motivated by some sort of disbelief within her.
After all, just a few verses before this, the angel Gabriel informed Mary
that Elizabeth, who was past child-bearing age, was pregnant.
Could anyone blame Mary for high-tailing it to see for herself?
But I would look at this a bit differently.
Perhaps the one whom Gabriel called, whom we call, “full of grace” (Lk. 1:28),
went to see Elizabeth not because she doubted the news about her cousin,
but because she believed it, because if the news of Gabriel
was as good as it sounded,
seeing her pregnant cousin would be better still.
Not at all unlike the announcement of Erin’s birth –
my brother and I wanted to see our sister,
not because we doubted my dad,
but because we received some good news from my dad,
and we wanted to receive more.
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But Mary did more than receive good news. Her very arrival announced good news:
“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb” (Lk. 1:41).
Someone alerted me recently to a part of the church’s tradition
that I had previously not known.
Some argue that John the Baptist was born without original sin –
note, not conceived without original sin, but born without it –
because of this moment in his life.
No matter where you are on the topic of original sin,
I think there is something here for you, for all of us:
as soon as the Lord came into John’s life,
his reaction was not envy;
he did not try to see how he stacked up against this guy;
he did not go through any calculus
about the potential pros and cons of this relationship.
Obviously, John could not have done any of this physically – he was in utero.
But I think Luke is trying to make a theological point here:
these are the telltale after-effects of original sin,
and John displayed none of them.
No, John immediately, instinctively leaped for joy.
And all this happened because Mary was not only a receiver of the good news;
she was a proclaimer of it as well.
Brothers and sisters, today is the day when the Lord enlists us
to be receivers and proclaimers of the good news, of the Gospel.
Just like Our Lady.
And the Lord enlists us here, the site where we are fed with the Word,
with the bread that is broken, the wine that is poured out.
This is where we are receivers, all of us, myself included.
And we leave to be proclaimers,
to burst through the doors of the church,
with the Gospel alive in our thoughts, words, and deeds.
May these final days of Advent be days when we walk
with all the great characters of the season –
the angel Gabriel;
Elizabeth and Zechariah;
Mary and Joseph;
John the Baptist;
Jesus.
And may what we receive from them as we walk be what we proclaim to others.
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