Today we remember the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  MLK was a prophet, very much in keeping with the Old Testament prophetic tradition.  In our reading from Isaiah today, the prophet speaks to a people who had been in captivity in Babylon for many years and are now experiencing a kind of PTSD.  They are divided, disillusioned, and lack a common vision.  Some have stayed in Babylon.  Some have returned from exile to their homeland.  And a new generation has been born after their return that do no share that earlier experience of captivity with their parents and grandparents.   

In their book, “The Christmas Journey,” author Sally Fisher and illustrator Douglas Sardo, offer an imaginative retelling of the story of the three kings from today’s Gospel.  Fisher’s inspiration for the tale was her visits to see her grandmother in New York City at Christmastime.  Every year, as she was growing up, they would go the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the famous Christmas tree and creche.  The 20 foot tree is magnificently lit and looms over a gorgeous nativity scene with a multitude of life-like figures and glorious angels hovering above on the tree.  The figures depict Naples’ multi-cultural population in the 18th century.  After Fisher and her grandmother shared this annual ritual, they would go back to her grandmother’s apartment and she would tell her granddaughter her own story of the journey of the tree, the angels, and all of the people and animals beneath the tree.  Fisher’s book is her remembrance of the tale that enchanted her so much, a story that sparked her own curiosity and wonder about how to make meaning of today’s Gospel.  What follows is my retelling of her story.  I shared it with you for the first time several years ago. Wonderful stories are worthy of being told over and over again.  They invite us to come along and learn something new every time we hear them.

Poetry, beauty and wonder.  That is what this morning is about.  Our souls long for the profound mystery at the heart of Christmas, the gloriously impossible reality that God’s power and God’s love came to us as a little child.  God’s ways are clearly not our ways.  We come together today as people who walk in a land of deep darkness.  There is so much right now that threatens our sense of well-being.  But into that deep darkness, a light has shined, “for a child has been born for us, a son given to us.”

Today’s Gospel is the beautiful story of two women caught up in the mystery and wonder of God. Both are carrying sons who are divinely commissioned by God to bring about God’s purposes for the world.  

Elizabeth is carrying John the Baptist, the one who will prepare the way for Jesus.  And her cousin Mary, is pregnant with Jesus, the Savior and Redeemer of the world.  Both are miraculous pregnancies.  Elizabeth was thought to be beyond child-bearing years, and yet she and her husband are expecting a son.  And Mary, her much younger, unmarried cousin, is carrying a child that she conceived after an angel announced that she would be bear God’s Son.  Mary and Elizabeth are participants in God’s work of salvation, and when they meet, they are immediately aware that their lives are intertwined in a way that goes beyond their understanding.  

On this Third Sunday in Advent, there are no more fitting words than “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say , Rejoice.”   Christmas is just two weeks away and we look forward to gathering on Christmas Eve for beautiful worship services, either here or with family and friends elsewhere, to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, and the coming of Christ to be with us in the flesh.  There is no greater joy than that.  And this afternoon, we will get a sneak preview of Christmas with our Lessons and Carols service, where we will be together with fellow Saint Georgians and with people from the larger community to experience this lovely treasure from our Anglican tradition.  If you didn’t get a chance to see our Minister of Music, Dr. Ben Keseley’s, Dragon Bytes article in video form this past Thursday, I highly recommend watching it when you get home today.  Ben recorded it inside the organ chamber and it’s both educational and funny.  I was especially interested to learn that the first Lessons and Carols service was held in 1880 on Christmas Eve at 10 pm and was intended to keep people “out of the teeming public houses,” a.k.a. rowdy, crowded bars.