Advent, 4 December 2020

 SERMON – ADVENT 4 DECEMBER 20 2020

 Do you remember the first time you handled a kaleidoscope?

How you looked into it. Gave it a gentle twist and saw a glorious multi coloured image.

Another twist and a different image appeared, an image of such beauty. Perhaps like looking at the finest stained glass in a cathedral.

Thrilling and inspiring

That is the reaction I have experienced with our two reading we’ve just heard, from Samuel and today’s Gospel. The Annunciation. (TS Eliot Prose –ideals

Poetry- language of reality

At first sight there is perhaps no connection between David being asked to build a Temple in Jerusalem and the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary, but turn the rim of the kaleidoscope and a trickle of connections becomes a torrent.

This morning, given Government advice, I need to keep things short.

So I will reel off some of the connections for you to chew on

Connections:

Both David and Mary are visited by a messenger from God

They are both lowly. David is a Shepherd who will become a King and build a glorious dwelling place for God.

Mary’s womb is to be a dwelling place for God incarnate. Her son will be born in “David’s city.”

Jesus, in the footsteps of David, will be the “Good Shepherd.”

The Temple enabled the Old Israel to come to know God. Turn the kaleidoscope a tiny bit and we find the Son of God in the Temple at Candlemas. We hear the Song of Simeon. The son of Mary will enabled the New Israel to know God.

Another twist of the kaleidoscope: What do we see? The twelve year old Jesus teaching in the Temple.in the Temple

Keep turning

Jesus’s statement, which gave the authorities the chance they had been waiting for:

“I will destroy this temple that is made with human hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.”

Jesus points us to the Crucifixion, to his body wrapped in a cold stone tomb, rather than enfolded in a Virgin’s womb.

We see the bursting from the Tomb –which we will celebrate in April – when the days will be longer and Spring around the corner.

Through Jesus’s ministry, his death and resurrection we gradually recognise that God is not kept in a Temple or in a tomb but resides within us. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

Our bodies and hearts are the Temple of the Holy Spirit within us.

How will we use this gift we are given?

God had a unique purpose for David and for Mary. We should not forget that through the gift of the Holy Spirit, God has a unique purpose too for you and me.

How do we best discern this?

Given this COVID Christmas, never has it been more important to reflect on what God’s purpose is for each of us.

What is God asking us to do?