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The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin prepared a worthy dwelling for your Son, grant, we pray, that, as you preserved her from every stain by virtue of the Death of your Son, which you foresaw, so, through her intercession, we, too, may be cleansed and admitted to your presence. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
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The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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Scripture citation(s): Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12
✛
The Prophet's Vision
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In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The death of Nelson Mandela is an event on the scale of the death of Pope John Paul II. It is not a tragedy like the assassinations of President Kennedy or Dr. King; it is a triumph of grace. What Nelson Mandela achieved was the victory of mercy over wrath, of forgiveness over vengeance. The President of South Africa put it best when he said, “Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father.”[1]
To understand is to study his face, made beautiful by the growth of charity through suffering. There you see it all – the commitment to freedom and justice, the longsuffering patience of prison, the emergence as a nation’s greatest son and the father of the people. It is on a biblical scale. Mandela is not Isaiah’s Messiah. But he evokes those thoughts: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”
His vision has Christianity’s outlines. South Africa’s blacks and whites had been taught Christianity and therefore knew the system of apartheid was under the Lord’s judgment. The title of Anglican Alan Paton’s novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, bears witness. Bishop Tutu was a close adviser on Truth and Reconciliation. South Africa was receptive ground for the good seed sown by its leader: “With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.” But further on: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”
This vision was put into practice in a time and place when other visions and feelings, which are very often the reigning spirits in a revolution, could easily have led to a bloodbath. Mandela grew from a young Marxist and Black Nationalist into a reconciling father of a whole nation. This was the result of 27 years in prison, where he befriended his white guards. He became a secular saint. South Africa is not the Kingdom of God. Its needs are enormous; the perils it faces are great. But in making the dangerous passage from apartheid to majority rule, South Africa and the world caught a remarkable glimpse of grace in Mandela’s example. It is sometimes said the world no longer has heroes; that giants lived only in bygone ages. That is not true. Mandela and Pope John Paul II guided the collapse of monstrous tyrannies and birthed a new order without starting a war.
So if these heroes are not the Messiah foretold by Isaiah, what is the prophet’s vision about? It is about nothing short of a new heaven and a new earth, including a heavenly city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven on the day when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Our earthly kingdoms may approximate true standards of justice and righteousness, but they will find their fulfillment only in Christ’s Kingdom where there is no sin, no evil, no death, no apartheid, no tears or crying, but joy and life everlasting.
Prophecy ceased in ancient Israel with the Book of Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament. It concludes, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”[2]
Then, after 400 years of prophetic silence, Elijah returned in the person of John the Baptist, who prepared the way of the Lord, the Messiah, the Son of God. In fact Jesus refers to his forerunner in these words, “All the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias (Elijah) which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”[3]
When the hearts of the generations, of the parents and the children, turn towards each other in forgiveness and understanding; when the leopard and the lamb lie down with the kid; when the child can place his hand on the cockatrice’ den; when swords are beaten into plowshares – the way of the Lord is being prepared.
This is what Advent is about. John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. To repent means to turn, to let go of the pride and anger, the greed and strife, the sham and pretense of our lives; to clear out the rubbish and make room for Jesus. Do some of you remember the old favorite from our 1940 Hymnal? “Oh come to my heart, Lord Jesus! There is room in my heart for thee!”
Nelson Mandela makes me optimistic for what an authentic leader can do. His story encourages me about the world’s short-term chances. It shows how a person can grow in grace as he grows in age; grow into greatness. It shows that the Gospel of Jesus is urgently relevant and politically practical. Jesus is coming, ready or not; but it helps to be ready! “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
_______________
[1] The Wall Street Journal, “Nelson Mandela 1918-2013”, Friday, December 6, 2013, p. 1.
[2] Malachi 4:5-6
[3] St. Matthew 11:13-15.
