Readings : Isaiah 7: 10-14 & Luke 1: 26-38
During Lent, it is our custom to recite the Ten Commandments, saying after each one, ‘Lord have mercy and incline our hearts to keep this law’.
When I recite the Ten Commandments in this way, I call to mind the ways I have broken each commandment, ask for forgiveness and resolve to keep that commandment in the future.
Why do we do this each Lent? We do it because we need to confornt the fact that we don’t like being told what to do. We don’t like being rule takers. That was one of the objections to the previous Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement from the EU, wasn’t it? We would be a nation of rule takers.
And who can forget the slogan ‘taking back control’. How we love the illusion that we can have control, or that we used to have it and we want it back.
Well we are a nation of rule takers now.
We are observing strict rules about how we should work, exercise, buy food, spend our leisure time and judging by the tumbleweed blowing down our High Street I think these rules are being almost universally observed.
Why? Because we know that they are for our own good and for the good of others. We need urgently to observe these rules if we are to limit the scale of the tragedy that will befall us, our loved ones, our community and our nation. We need to observe these rules if we are to love our neighbour as ourselves and if we are to live in communities where our neighbours love us also.
And listening to the news of the hospitals in London already at breaking point, seeing pictures of people who are still forced to go to work despite the danger, the hospital staff who are themselves falling sick as they save others without adequate protection, it is becoming clearer and clearer that we should have followed these rules a lot sooner.
And so we say, ‘Lord, have mercy and incline our hearts to keep this law’.
What was it that prevented us from following these rules earlier? Greed; in some cases. In other cases, a reluctance to stop doing those things that make us feel important and affirmed by others. In still other cases; the necessity of earning a living in a world where we cannot be sure that we can rely on others to look after us. In summary: a failure to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Well that is now in the past. We cannot change the past, we can only ask for mercy and resolve to behave differently in the future.
Can we really behave differently?
The angel announced the birth of Jesus to young Mary. When Mary questioned how she could bear a child, the angel told her that her elderly cousin Elizabeth was already with child so she should be certain that there was nothing God couldn’t do.
And so, Mary prepared for the birth of Jesus. She did as she was told. ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’ She relinquished control and became a rule taker. Her obedience was her strength, not her weakness.
And she bore for us the baby Jesus, the Immanuel, whose name means ‘God is with us’.
God is with us. There is no limit on what he can do for us. We live in hope that a miracle may be just around the corner. We live in hope that he can incline our hearts to keep his laws.