Advent Voices Found: Annunciation
No longer settled
Voices Found 57
1 No longer settled or sure of our ways
we leave ourselves open, in moments of grace,
to fresh ways of seeing--scales fall from our eyes
and in our new visions, the Spirit shall rise.
Refrain:
Rise on our wings, awake to new birth,
breathe in our bodies, and free all the earth.
2 Claiming our passions, embracing our rage
strengthens our love to refashion this age,
unleashes the power to challenge our lies
and in righteous anger, the Spirit shall rise
Refrain
3 Voices long silenced and mem'ries denied
call out for healing, for justice and pride.
Our hearts hear the anguish of each sacred cry
and in our compassion, the Spirit shall rise.
Refrain
Words: Jody L. Caldwell
Music: Kimberly A. Williams
An Advent voice: the first Annunciation
In A women's Lectionary for the Whole Church year B, the story of Hagar is appointed for the second Sunday of Advent. Here, the author, Wilda C. Gafney, emphasizes that Hagar (Genesis 16: 7-13) was the first person in Scripture who received an Annunciation: a Messenger who told her that she was pregnant and that she would have a vast progeny, that her seed would be numerous without counting. Hagar is also the only mortal in the Bible who gave God a Name.
No longer settled
Hagar's story at the beginning of Advent leaves us feeling unsettled and unsure of our ways. This is not the usual Advent lesson. Perhaps a new lesson is goading us to anticipate more fully, the coming of Emmanuel.
Christians, especially Episcopalians, rarely sing about righteous anger and rage. "No longer settled," effectively captures Hagar’s fury that drove her to flee the unjust punishment she endured at the hands of Sarah, abuse enabled by Abraham who fathered her child. God heard Hagar's cry and sent a holy Messenger who announced that she would bear a son who would produce a new people, but that she must go home. Astonished, that the Ageles One heard her, Hagar named God El- Ro'i, the "One who sees me." She is the only person to name God in the Bible.
Later in the story when she is again cast out into the desert with her son Ishmael, she watches her baby dying of thirst. Yet again, she cries to God. Miraculously, “scales fall from her eyes” and she sees God's saving wellspring of water. After she gives the baby a drink, she goes on her way in the desert. Eventually she finds an Egyptian wife for him. Thus through her son, Ishmael, her seed will continue from generation to generation just as the seed of Abraham and Sarah.
Meditation:
Do you feel unsettled as we begin this Advent season? Do you feel an unusual need for the salvation of God? To me, in the anticipation of Jesus's birth, we feel intensely Hagar's cry to "God who sees me!"
Help me, O God who sees and hears me, to rejoice in the birth of Emmanuel. Help me to share the good news of the redeeming Love.
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