Advent IV

Advent IV (Luke 1:39-45) “Blessed are you….”

The blessing of God is the real presence of God.

Someone once said that 90% of success is just showing up. The Biblical writers observe that most people most of the time are sleep walking through life.

Most of us live according to inherited beliefs and habits of behavior. We don’t question. We don’t pay attention. We resist change. We miss the blessing because we have closed our minds and hearts to the abundance God has designed into the universe, our species and indeed into our own souls.

Mary had made a different choice. Mary made a real choice to be present to God. In that choice Mary experienced such a profound blessing that the archangel Gabriel described her as full of grace. Mary’s cousin Elizabeth observed that she was filled with blessing.

What does it mean to be filled with grace? How do we enter into the blessing of God?

God reveals the pattern of blessing in Mary.

Mary set her priorities according to the priorities of God. She made room in her soul for God. She paid attention to the voice of God speaking through Moses and the prophets. She cultivated within her soul a place of silence so she could still the voices of demand and the distortions of fear.

Mary placed first things first as she lived and moved and made choices in her life. She just didn’t profess a belief in the pattern of creation. She embraced the pattern. She immersed her mind, heart and will in the pattern,

The pattern of Creation is the defining nature of God. The pattern of Creation is universal unconditional love. Human beings experience the pattern of love in three sets of personal relationships. Moses and the prophets are very clear on this point. There is no love apart from personal relationships. Love always activates though a choice and produces an action.

Mary’s example of real choice is revealed in a single word: “yes”. Where so many people throughout time and in her own time said no to God Mary said yes.

The primary relationship God designed into our souls in our relationship with the co-eternal Son. We enter into that relationship through worship. For those of you who have chosen to hear the call to worship and have come here today to say yes to the call to worship, you are already 90% on your way to receiving the blessing and to becoming the blessing.

The second set of relationships God designed for us to experience is our relationships with each other. We say “yes” to our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Creation as we cultivate compassion and kindness towards other people. The key to this choice is the question we form in our souls. That question is: how may I help?

The third relationship God designed into our souls is the relationship we have with our true self. There is a false self, a false ego, patterned in pride and self-will. St. Paul calls this false ego the Adamic nature. It is the pattern of separation we as a species chose to define our lives. Our true self is patterned after the image and likeness of the co-eternal Son, The Beloved. It is the Christ nature.

There are two ways you can choose to be you. There is the way of Adam which is the way of separation that produces distortion and death. And, there is the way of Jesus Christ which is the way of reunification, compassion and eternal life.

Mary said yes to our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Creation in the three fold pattern of personal relationships: worship, compassion and personal transformation. In those choices she entered into the divine presence God designed into the universe, our planet  and our species. She showed up for life and she showed up to life.

As she made that real choice to be present to God her soul expanded to receive greater and greater blessings. She made herself ready to become the hagios  theotokos, the holy mother of God,  as she made the myriad of small choices in her daily life.

Archangel Gabriel looked at Mary and exclaimed: Hail Mary, full of grace. St. Elizabeth looked at Mary and said. Blessed are you.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Creation sets the pattern of blessing for us to choose. The Plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ offers the blessing of reunification with the Father as a gift. The Plan of Sanctification in the Holy Spirit is for each of us and all of us to say yes to God as Mary said yes to God.

In that yes you can be filled with grace. In that yes you can receive the blessing and become the blessing so others will look at you and say. Blessed are you.