Advent Challenge - Luke Chapters 1 and 2

It's been a long time since I published here - about 10 months.  My life has taken some twists and turns.  As I went along I reflected on last year's journey, and my plan to launch Parish Development Ministries.  When I look back at everything I intended to do, I do think I had a decent road map.  But I didn't do a lot of it.  As it turns out, my heart really is in parish ministry, and I'm really glad to be back in that role.

Last summer I accepted a call to St. Mary's Church in Wayne, PA.  So we moved again, and I'm settling into this new and wonderful place.  Since it is a year of new things, I decided to launch an Advent Challenge for the new year.  Things worked out nicely.  There are 24 days of Advent this year, and it's Year C, when we'll be reading the Gospel of Luke.  Since Luke has 24 chapters, it just makes sense to read one chapter a day this month, and be prepared for Christmas.

Luke is an interesting Gospel.  He has one of the richest infancy narratives, and we celebrate many of these details in our Christmas stories.  Chapter one sets the stage with the Angel Gabriel coming not only to the Virgin Mary, but also to her cousin Elizabeth, announcing to each woman that they are going to have a miraculous pregnancy.  In Elizabeth's case, she conceived a child in her old age, none other than John the Baptist - the one who would prepare the way for the Messiah.  For Mary, she was to conceive a child when the Holy Spirit came to her, and Jesus became incarnate, first in her womb.  The incredible thing about this is that in His incarnation, Jesus began at the same place where all of us begin - a tiny embryo that developed inside His mother's womb, and was born as vulnerable as the next person.  

An interesting literary device that Luke used was to end each chapter in the same way.  Chapter 1 ends with John the Baptist growing up in the desert, and it says that he grew and became strong in spirit.  Chapter 2 ends describing Jesus' childhood - how he grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.  The common theme is that both children grew - John in the obvious way, and Jesus as God incarnate in a way that reflects His humility.

As an aside, these two chapters also contain some of wonderful canticles that we use in Morning and Evening Prayer.  Mary's song, the Magnificat, is found in Luke 1:46-56.  This is the song Mary sung after visiting her cousin Elizabeth and little John leapt in Elizabeth's womb.  When John was born, and his father's powers of speech returned, the first words Zechariah uttered were a song of praise to God )Luke 1:68-79).  And when Jesus was presented in the Temple in Chapter 2, an aged prophet named Simeon offered a brief song, known to us today as the Nunc Dimmitis (Luke 2:29-32).  And of course, no treatment of Biblical songs would be complete without the first few lines of the Gloria, (Luke 2:14) that the choir of angels sang when the birth of Christ was first announced to the shepherds.

There are so many wonderful things in Scripture - so many details that jump out at one point in our lives or another.  Thank you for joining me on the Advent Challenge since the current plan is to not only read a chapter a day, but to write some reflections on it.

Fr. Conor+