Whispers of Advent

The Rev. Audrey Sutton

Yes.

So often do we agree to something, sign up for something, without fully knowing the depth of what we have agreed to. Our ‘yes’ is pregnant with possibility; a marriage…having a child…following Christ. We only have to wait to see what will unfold with our ‘yes’.

On Christmas Day 2011 my ‘yes’ led to a 17 hour delivery of the daughter that we had prayed and prayed for. In the midst of the pain, I lost my voice and began to silently recite to myself: My body broken for you. This biblical reminder of suffering and freedom became the anchor to which I clung in the final hours of delivery. As my crying newborn was placed on my broken body that Christmas night, as cliche as it sounds, I could not help but think of Mary, mother of Jesus, and what followed her ‘yes’.

Waiting.

Advent.

The Messiah had arrived and the Kingdom of God drew near.

Though my difficult labor is only a whisper in comparison to the agony Mary experienced, every Advent season I am taken back to this memory, and I ponder her yes. Yes to virgin pregnancy, to birth. Yes to bearing Christ.

Did she too lose her voice in the groanings of labor as she bore Jesus into the world?

Yes to her body being broken, her heart being broken. How hoarse was her voice in the midst of guttural grieving, as she witnessed her son abused and executed, his body broken? Though her ‘yes’ would be a sword that would pierce her very soul, how could she have fully known the depth of what this would be?

His body, broken for us.

A body that we are invited to participate in; in baptism and in eucharist. The sacrificial gift that allows us to become a member of the Body of Christ, the Church. Our ‘yes’ is only a whisper of what it represents, pregnant with divine opportunity and deepening faith that leads directly to salvation in Jesus.

We take our first steps in faith without fully knowing the depth of what we have agreed to. The act of giving over our life to the Triune God and presenting ourselves for sanctification is as St. Paul says, “like looking through a glass dimly”. How does one comprehend the hardships and transformations on the path of life, or understand the love of Christ before experiencing it? We only have to wait to see what will unfold with our ‘yes’.

As we live out our Advent as the Church, the Body of Christ, waiting for the glorious return of Jesus the Messiah, may we remember ‘yes’, and cling to the anchor of his body broken for us.