give thanks - give life - magnificat

by Jon Inkpin for Advent Sunday 2014

Keep awake – keep alert – again and again we hear this message repeated in the Gospels, especially around this Advent season.  Keep awake: like an alarm clock, this message challenges us to rise from our slumbers and get living.  It calls on us to open our eyes, open our ears, and open our hearts, to the love of God coming afresh in, and among and beyond us.  What a vital message this is for a Christian new year, as well as a preparation for Christmas.  Are we awake?  Are we alert? Are we expecting God to live and grow and come to birth in and among us? 

In many ways, the best response to the Advent challenge is that which we see in Mary, the mother of Jesus.  That is why we have taken Mary’s song, the Magnificat, as our Advent theme this year.  ‘Give Thanks – Give Life’: that is the refrain.  For giving thanks and giving life are two major elements of Mary’s song, the Magnificat, which we also can share in.  Just as Mary gives thanks for the Holy Spirit whom she sees and hears God in and around her, so we too can open our eyes and ears to that same Spirit among us.  Just as Mary opened her heart, and her very being, to the love and power of God, so we too can open our hearts, and our very selves, to the love of God in Christ Jesus.   Giving thanks and giving life: these things can be symbolised or embodied in ordinary Christmas presents.  Yet they are most fully embodied in the giving of of our whole human lives…

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Today’s Gospel reading can sometimes seem quite confronting.  It is not an easy passage to understand, particularly as it is full of strong apocaplyptic imagery.  It should therefore not be read literally, or as a timetable of the so-called ‘end times’.  It is certainly not meant to induce fear into us.  Rather it is an invocation to hope and the expectation of joy to come.  Whatever we are facing in our lives,   whatever is happening in our world, whatever we might fear or be worried about: none of these things matter if we trust in God and stay awake.  For if we keep awake, we shall see, and hear, and know, God’s peace.  If we stay alert, we shall share, like Mary, in the Holy Spirit, and give life to others.

So let me not confuse that simple, but profound, message by too many words of my own this morning.  Instead, let me encourage us all to stay awake, to be alert, and to sing magnificat: giving thanks and giving life.  In the Advent edition of our parish magazine – Namalata – which we receive today, we can read more about Mary and Magnificat.  The magazine contains a number of other elements which I hope we can all use to deepen our prayer as we begin this new Christian year.  It includes the invitation to share in the Season of Gratefulness, and a sample calendar to assist.  It includes a Parish Prayer Diary, which I hope may be a help in giving thanks for our parish life, our wider Church and our wider community.  It also contains a brief introduction both to Graham Warren, who willl be ordinaed as a deacon on Saturday and join us, on a part-time basis, from the beginning of February, and also to Natalie Adams, who will join us just before Christmas, with her son Levi, as a full-time paid deacon and as someone to help support our ministries with children, families and younger people.  Please do pray especially for them at this time and for grace that God may work among us to help find the money and other assistance to enable their ministries to flourish and to enlarge our mission.  For, like Mary, this Advent we open our hearts and very selves to God’s Holy Spirit, uncertain of exactly what will happen to us, yet surprised and excited by the  prospects ahead.  So may we keep awake and sing Magnificat, now and always.

Let me lead us into gratefulness and into more attentive prayer by sharing with you just one beautiful offering for our Season of Gratefulness: a short audio-visual reflection by the Austrian Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast…

Give thanks - give life - magnificat.  Amen.