A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
Readings: Michah 5:1-4a Hebrews 10:5-10 Luke 1:39-45
Our Lord was born in Bethlehem. The small town is no small thing. The obscurity and insignificance of Bethlehem sets the very tone of the Incarnation, of the Lord’s presence among us.
You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah
too small to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel;
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient times (Mic 5:1).
God chooses to be born in an insignificant place, a village, because God does not come among us to loom large as a person or a presence. No, God comes to us as a small, impoverished babe, and he will die among us as one of the poor, an outcast.
The mysterious yet beautiful contours of the Incarnation correspond to the very nature of God. God does not hover above us as the most important person, the largest presence in the world, though we cling to that mistaken picture. Indeed, God is not in the world, not in the sense of something we can see.
Only the silliest of scientists would think they could find God in the world or prove that God does not exist. Existence is a property of things within the world. Pose the matter in those terms, and you might as well admit, God does not exist.
No, in creating the world God establishes it so thoroughly in freedom that many can deny the very existence of a creator. Looking for God in the world is like looking for the novelist in the novel. He’s everywhere and nowhere. Someone had to write the story, but she will not be appearing on its pages.
Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story about a shoemaker. It is called, “Where Love Is, There God Is Also.” Martin Avdyeitch is an honest laborer. He buried his young wife and, not long after,
Martin buried his son, and gave way to despair so great and overwhelming that he murmured against God. In his sorrow he prayed again and again that he too might die, reproaching God for having taken the son he loved, his only son while he, old as he was, remained alive. After that Martin left off going to church.
Martin lived with his sorrow and his anger. One day he shared them with a wandering old man, a very wise man who frankly told him:
“You have no right to say such things, Martin. We cannot judge God’s ways. Not our reasoning, but God’s will, decides. If God willed that your son should die and you should live, it must be best so. As to your despair—that comes because you wish to live for your own happiness.”
“What else should one live for?” asked Martin.
“For God, Martin,” said the old man. “He gives you life, and you must live for Him. When you have learnt to live for Him, you will grieve no more, and all will seem easy to you.”
Martin was silent awhile, and then asked: “But how is one to live for God?”
The old man answered: “How one may live for God has been shown us by Christ. Can you read? Then buy the Gospels, and read them: there you will see how God would have you live. You have it all there.”
These words sank deep into Martin’s heart, and that same day he went and bought himself a Testament in large print, and began to read.
The word of God occupies no space within the world. It is not of this world, yet it changes the world of Martin Avdyeitch. And one night in a dream he heard: “Martin. Martin! Look out into the street tomorrow for I shall come.”
The next day Martin eagerly looked out of his basement window at each pair of passing shoes. One belonged to Stepanitch, an old man who shoveled snow to survive. Martin shared tea with him.
Another set of shoes belonged to a woman, “poorly dressed, and with a baby in her arms.” Martin fed her and gave her his old coat and some money to buy back her shawl.
Finally, Martin broke up a scuffle between an old woman, selling apples, and a street urchin, who tried to steal one of them. Martin offered to pay for the apple, but first he listened attentively to the old woman’s troubles, the story of her own sad life. Then the boy offered to carry her apples home for her.
Come close of day, Martin returned to his Scriptures. Opening them,
he seemed to hear footsteps, as though someone was moving behind him. Martin turned round, and it seemed to him as if people were standing in a dark corner, but he could not make out who they were. And a voice whispered in his ear: “Martin, Martin, don’t you know me?”
“Who is it?” muttered Martin.
“It is I,” said the voice. And out of the dark corner stepped Stepanitch, who smiled and vanishing like a cloud was seen no more.
“It is I,” said the voice again. And out of the darkness stepped the woman with the baby in her arms, and the woman smiled and the baby laughed, and they too vanished.
“It is I,” said the voice once more. And the old woman and the boy with the apple stepped out and both smiled, and then they too vanished.
And Martin’s soul grew glad. He crossed himself, put on his spectacles, and began reading the Gospel just where it had opened; and at the top of the page he read
“I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.”
And at the bottom of the page he read
“Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren even these least, ye did it unto me (Matt. XXV).
And Martin understood that his dream had come true; and that the Savior had really come to him that day; and he had welcomed him.
Do not search for God in the world, for God is everywhere and nowhere within it. Unless you open your heart—something else that stands beyond and beneath the world in front of you—you will never find God. When you do open that chamber—an alcove created for one person, one presence—you will see God everywhere.
