The Son of the Highest: A Meditation on Luke 1, for the 4th Sunday in Advent

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God

unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph,

of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

 

And the angel came in unto her, and said,

Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee:

 blessed art thou among women.

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying,

and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

 

And the angel said unto her,

Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb,

and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest:

and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever;

and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

 

Then said Mary unto the angel,

How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

And the angel answered and said unto her,

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,

and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee:

 therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee

 shall be called the Son of God.

And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth,

she hath also conceived a son in her old age:

and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.

For with God nothing shall be impossible.

 

And Mary said,

Behold the handmaid of the Lord;

be it unto me according to thy word.

And the angel departed from her.

 

I wonder if in our age, the idea of The Most High has become an alien concept.  For nearly 150 years, our Western culture has been steeping in a soup of Darwinist evolutionary theory, garnished in the academy with Nietzschean materialistic atheism, and medically applied to the masses in soulless Freudian psychology.  This triumvirate of atheistic materialists laid the foundations of modern movements in education, politics, and philosophy which convulsed the world into a century of world wars, culminating in the social upheaval and despair of our current day.  When we look around our world today and see people acting less rational than animals, with no moral compass but temporary pleasure and their own will to power, where the life of the mind is reduced to nonsensical ramblings and bio-chemical reactions, and the beauty of the soul is twisted into avarice and perpetual victimhood, we see the lived out experience of our ill fated attempts at self-deification.  Without reference to The Most High God whose Kingdom and Word shall endure forever, we are left with the paltry heights of man’s fallen corruption, like those who celebrate the heaping up of dung hills while ignoring the majesty of soaring mountain peaks behind them.  With eyes blinded, ears deafened, minds darkened, and hearts hardened against the truth of The Most High, the heights of human achievement become ever deepening caverns into which we fall.

 

And yet, our time is not really so unlike that in which the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, announcing glad and holy tidings.  Then as now, the strong sought and seized power, the impious manipulated the material world to their passions, the academics thought up justifications for violence and debauchery, and the hearts of the faithful huddled in this worldly darkness enlightened by the Word of the Lord, awaiting the coming of His Word Made Flesh who would scatter all darkness and usher in a never-ending age of light and life. To blessed Mary this Word of the Lord came, and in her was conceived by the power of God Almighty, the Son of the Highest.  In her womb was the greatest miracle ever to be contemplated, greater even than the creation of the universe itself:  Jesus, fully God according to the indivisible essence of His Father, and fully man according to the sinless humanity He received of His mother, united in one Divine Person through whom mankind would be reconciled to the Most Holy Trinity.  The Incarnation of Jesus is the Advent of the Word of God Made Flesh who dwells among us, full of grace and truth, who is Himself the light and life of the world.  This is the Word which was spoken to create the cosmos, now united to His creation by inseparable bonds in the Person of Jesus Christ, to whom has been given the Eternal Kingdom in which forgiveness, life, and salvation are poured out freely by grace to all who repent and believe in Him.  This is the Light of World which no darkness can overcome, or according to their own fallen powers of reason, even comprehend.  This is Jesus, born of Mary, the Son of the Highest.

 

To be sure, the lure of self important scholars, politicians, and the hedonistic rabble, seated upon the dunghills of their various theories and accomplishments, calling out for applause and obeisance from their dark caverns of misery, remain among us to this day.  There will always be another Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, or a myriad of their intellectually and spiritually blind disciples calling the world to follow them into ever deeper and darker recesses of human depravity.  But despite them all, the Light of the World still shines forth in the Incarnate Word of God who dwells among us, who has reconciled God and man in His own Person through His life, death, and resurrection.  Like blessed Mary, the Word of the Lord comes to us in the darkness of our world and declares us blessed and highly favored by the wonders of His grace.  To us the angelic choir sings the Gloria in Excelsis, inviting our voices to join theirs as we sing glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men. 

 

Hear the Word of the Lord come to you this day, to open your eyes that you may see, unstop your ears that you may hear, uncloud your mind that you may perceive, and unburden your soul that you may believe all that the Son of the Highest has done for you.  And may we all, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, respond in faith that we are the servants of the Lord, and that the saving grace of the Lord’s Gospel be fulfilled in us according to His Eternal Word.  Amen.