By Elaine Ramshaw
Revised Common Lectionary Reflection for Advent 3, Year B
December 17, 2023
This Sunday’s readings have a very strong prophetic throughline, especially if the Magnificat is used as the psalm of the day. Even without that, though, the reading from Isaiah provides substance for the voice crying in the wilderness that John the Baptist identifies with. More than last week’s readings, Isaiah 61 makes explicit what Bishop Tutu would call God’s dream: good news for the oppressed, liberty for the captives and release for the prisoners, comfort for the mourners, rebuilding for the ruined cities.
In Mary’s song, that’s casting down the mighty and the wealthy who abuse their power, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things. The stewardship message for the preacher to convey is shaped by God’s dream of justice. The expectation of Advent is for God’s kingdom to come, for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, for God’s dream to come true—and that looks like the hungry being fed, the prisoners being freed, the oppressed being liberated. How do we use our own time and gifts and resources to join in on this vision of liberation and rebuilding?
At the end of the reading from Isaiah, the speaker says, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, for God has clothed me with the garments of salvation.” We are not just people who need to give to others, to comfort them or to liberate them. We are also people in need of comfort and liberation who have heard the good news coming to us. The call to give and work for others in need is always, for us, linked to the knowledge of all we have received, materially and spiritually: clothing, food, consolation, freedom. Our motivation to feed the hungry, to comfort the mourners and to rebuild the ruined cities is not meant to arise from duty or external expectation, but from joy. We rejoice in what has been done for us, and out of that joy we look to see how we can spread those goods around: food, consolation, repairs.
Like John the Baptizer, we are not ourselves asked to be the light – just to bear witness to the light. Even if we all pull together, all of us Christians, we can’t make God’s dream of justice come true. We can, though, be a voice in the wilderness calling for a new way; we can with our actions and our gifts bear witness to God’s dream for humanity. We can join with others to feed the hungry, to work for peace and rebuilding after disasters, to speak out against the policies that have brought long prison sentences to nonviolent offenders.
Advent doesn’t only look forward to Christmas as the remembrance of Jesus’ birth; it also looks forward to Jesus’ coming again to bring in the kingdom of God, to make God’s dream come true. Advent stewardship is using our gifts and spending our money in accordance with this expectation, that Jesus will come again to make the world over, to make the world new. What would we do with all that has been given to us if we truly lived in this expectation, that the world is about to turn? (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 723)
In worship
If you choose to use the Magnificat, Mary’s song, as the psalm of the day, there are many ways to sing it and to use it as a focus for our own mission, to feed the hungry and to lift up those who are bowed down. ELW 251, 573, 723 and 882 and All Creation Sings 907, “Filled with Hope and Gratitude,” are all versions of Mary’s song. ELW 723, “Canticle of the Turning,” with its strong sense of hopeful expectation for God to come and change the world, is especially appropriate as an Advent song. Phrases from the Magnificat or from one of these hymns’ versions of it can be used in the prayers, asking God to cast down tyrants, to lift up the lowly, to feed those in need. An offertory prayer also could incorporate some of these phrases as we ask God to feed the hungry and to lift up the lowly also through our gifts, and through the work of ELCA World Hunger Appeal and other funds and groups supported by our congregation.
With children
Taking the imagery of clothing from Isaiah 61, it can be fun for children to play dress-up! If you can gather lots of clothes and scarves and fabric, some dull-colored and scratchy and tattered, some brightly colored and silky or fluffy, the children can dress themselves in the sad clothes and then trade those for rainbow garments. They can then act out how God reclothes us by putting bright clothes around the shoulders, or crowns or garlands on the heads, of others who are dressed in the drab clothing. How does God give us new clothes? How can we give new clothes to people who don’t have nice clothes, or a warm home? The children can ask the grown-ups what we in this congregation do to help people who need clothes. Is there a mitten tree? If so, the children can probably explain what it’s for.
With youth
John the Baptizer explains himself by saying, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” Talk with the teens about this image of someone crying out in the wilderness, calling for the path to be cleared for God’s justice. Whom would they see today as someone crying out in the wilderness, telling us to make a new way? Do they think of Greta Thunberg or other voices speaking out about what Isaiah calls “the devastations of many generations,” calling for environmental justice? Do they think of activists for peace or for racial justice? Of voices against mass incarceration? Is God calling each of us to be a voice crying out in the wilderness of injustice and oppression, insisting on the possibility of a better way? Do they think people can be such a voice without being famous or having a public platform? Is there anyone they know in church or in the neighborhood who is a voice crying out in the wilderness, working for justice and liberation in the middle of the mess we’ve made of things?
Here are previous reflections for Advent 3B:
2020 – A very COVID Advent: Can’t steal our joy
2017 – Rejoice – Jesus is coming!
2014 – Stewards of Advent time: Witness
2011 – Time to lighten up
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