Embodied | A Small-Town Messiah, December 19, 2021

Micah 5:2-5a
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

While the Good News of Christ’s embodied life fills me with joy, it is even better news for the people of a nowhere village than those living in an empire like, well, us. For people who live in the empire, with all the privileges of Pax Romana, those same privileges can blur our vision and prevent us from seeing that Christ would not be born and Virginia Hospital Center.

Mary’s Magnificat was not sung in the Temple or National Cathedral. No, her song of praise and servanthood was sung in the backwoods as she and her cousin lived under the boot of the empire. We often say that God does not take sides, but God has done just that in Bethlehem and through Mary. In flesh and blood, God has taken the side of those on the margins.

With those pulling a double-shift only to be barely able to put food on the table.

With those working in the fields, feeding the empire while not being able to come out of the shadows.

Mary’s boy with a birth certificate stamped in a one-donkey town takes the tidings of comfort and joy we sing of and amplifies them to those who are overlooked, forgotten, and ignored.

God is revealed in the places, and in the people we least expect. We might expect God to be announced in grand or ornate spaces, and God is revealed in these spaces, but, as the prophet Micah said, and Mary and Elizabeth reveal the embodied presence of God, God in flesh and bone, will take place in a town of little consequence and through a person that many might overlook. This is what makes the Good News of the Gospel good news for all creation: God did not enter human history through power and influence as we describe those terms. Mary’s song of faithfulness, along with the words of the prophet, invites us to look for the hospitality, love, and redemption of God in the people and places we least expect.

Off the map places.

People overlooked.