Let it be… 

          The crisis occasioned by the global pandemic has intruded into our 2020 Advent season. Our anticipation in hope this year is in far more than usual. For Advent is a period of waiting in hope and expectation of the coming Kingdom. Mary in her song in Luke 1:46-52 cf invites us to this wait. 

Mary could not have sang the Magnifcat before yielding to the Angelic commission. The Angel Gabriel appeared to her, announcing that she would be with a son, a unique son, son of God Most High… who would be the long waited messiah. Then, there, and to them, Angels were integral part of their ontology. Angels appeared and disappeared as the air we breathe. Not as dumb and obscure, rather invisible as today’s Angeles is. Otherwise, we would understand why Mary, Elizabeth, Zachariah, Joseph and the Jews believed.     

Mary said, “Let it be!”

Hidden act of God in the Magnificat is in Mary’s concluding line: “He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.” The survival prospects of Israel under the terror Rome was grim. No rebellion from within, no deal with Caesars brought relief to them. The prophets, true, were seeing a grimmer future still. Hence the news of a savior born of her womb… for which generations to come will call her blessed. 

She echoed, a song now common song for the religious in Israel, Hannah’s song. Hannah also concluded with a vision of a strong King in Israel, a God’s inverted social order, to include the excluded, the hungry and the left behind.

Nature exhibits many “evil” traits: storms, earthquakes, and other natural disasters cause incredible destruction; locusts, COVID-19 has killed many and, of course the impact of the pandemic.

How in this condition can we rejoice in the Lord through the crisis of our world?

Hannah refuses to blame evil, Satan or anyone else for the crisis, but saw God in it. She said,“The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up.” This position was not unusual, Rabbi Sacks, in his book Not in God’s Name, argues, monotheism is not an easy religion and cites Isa 45;7’ “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil.” He questions, how can God, who is all good, create evil?  Is it not that the “bad” God does is in response to the bad we do?  Its Justice punishment and retribution. He invites us to see God as both Judge and father… embodiment of Justice and love.
If in our current crisis pushes us to ponder where is God, and why is God not intervening? It is in Hannah’s song, that we may be the confident: “For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, And He has set the world upon them.” The world won’t crush on us in our present crisis. 

        As long as God holds the world’s pillars, he will keep his promises to us. To know that God holds the entire world in his hands, gives us confidence that no pandemic, natural disasters, evil systems will stop Him from raising His people, to raise praises to Him. As the Magnifcat or Hannah’s song. 

But there are already signs of God at work in the world. Where is God’s hand in your life as we look towards the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory?

No one is holy like the Lord, For there is none besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God.

 Canon Francis Omondi.

Advent 2020