A Promise Made. A Promise Kept!

by Rev. Williams Abba  |  12/18/2022  |  Images of Faith

Advent comes to an end in a few days. How time flies! The prophet Micah announces the great promise of God: that the small tribe which settled in the insignificant town of Bethlehem will one day produce the ruler of Israel. But between that promise and its fulfillment, there is a long interim period of destruction, suffering and exile. I know all about destruction and suffering, as I have witnessed folks who have been overrun by non-state actors back in my homeland.

When your community or country is overrun and you are dumped in a strange community as an internally displaced person (IDP), it's difficult to hold on to a promise, even when that promise is the promise of God. But it's precisely that promise that gives substance to the hope of the people and gives a direction to their lives. At the end of the exile, the remnant who still believe return to rebuild their lives in the hope that God will indeed keep his promises.

In Luke's Gospel, we are introduced to an aged, married couple who stay alive on that hope—Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. They represent the hope that did not die, and they see it fulfilled in their son, John, who is to prepare for the one from Bethlehem. And it is the fulfilled hope of that old couple which is given to Mary as a sign: “Know this too, your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, for nothing is impossible with God.”

Mary hurries to see this sign of a hope fulfilled. In the meeting of the old Elizabeth and the young Mary, the Old Testament meets the New Testament, the ancient promise meets its fulfillment in two mothers—Elizabeth, the mother of the last great prophet who will go before the Lord, and Mary, the mother of the Lord himself. It is a time of good news, of great blessing; it is a time for womb-shaking rejoicing. The old promises are new events, and now is the time of their long-awaited fulfillment. It is a great time.

Through Mary, God is seen to keep the promise announced through the prophet Micah so long ago. The promise of God will take flesh in Mary and be formed in the person of Jesus. Mary's womb will become the first tabernacle where Jesus lives. In today’s Gospel, Mary is blessed for believing that the promises made to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. In Mary, we can see that God doesn’t just make promises, He keeps them. In Mary, we can see someone who allows the promise of God to shape her whole life, not in a passive way, but because she says “yes” to the promise happening in her.

At Christmas, we celebrate the great event that Jesus is the kept promise of God. He comes to us as a gift of the Father and invites us to have the confidence to make a few promises ourselves. As Christians, we are a people of promises, and God holds fast to the words of promise we have made to Him. Make a promise and God will fulfill it for you. Above all, let us remember to keep Christ in Christmas!