Advent has been a time of preparation, a time now drawing to a close. Advent has been a time appointed by the Church, and set apart by her faithful, to prepare for the coming of the Lord into our lives at the great Christmas Feast.

Advent, presumably, has been a time well-marked, well-spent, well-observed, well- honored, as it has sought through these four Sundays to prepare us fully for that.

And now the preparation is over, the preparation draws to a close, and it may well be that the Church has presumed too much in her expectations of us, and we have presumed too much in regard to what we can do and how faithful we will be this time, how well and fully we will prepare year.

We probably have not done all that we hoped, and as well as we intended. Once again we are probably not well prepared for Christmas, not as prepared as we would have liked to be And certainly we are not perfectly prepared for Christ.

And so the Church, always seeking, perhaps fitfully, but always seeking to be as loving as our Lord, appoints a final consolation at the end of Advent, on the very Eve of the Incarnation, the coming of our Lord among us. The Church puts before us this very day lessons of surpassing consolation, and unimaginable tenderness for our lives and for our world, so desperately in need of God, God with us, Immanuel.

The Church offers us, for our encouragement, the quiet glory of St Mary together with her cousin, St Elizabeth at the Visitation, when the two expectant mothers meet and greet and spend time together "in the hill country of Judea".

We who are ourselves perhaps expectant with the promise of God, expecting the fulfillment of his purpose, see on this Fourth and Final Sunday in Advent, the woman who was the first to prepare for the birth of the Savior. Not the first to expect the Savior, all Israel had always expected the Savior, but rather the first to actually prepare for him - well, modestly, and seriously. To prepare for his appearing, in heart, in her world, in her very life.

Each of us is called, individually and as a Church - as Christians, and as a Community of Christians - to bring forth in our lives the promised Christ, to nurture in our hearts and souls, as Mary did in her womb, the Incarnate saving Word of God, and then to bring him forth, to show him to the world, in our lives, and in the lives of those around us, those lives we touch and grace, to make present and real and obvious the Incarnation of the loving purpose of God.

And that, presumably, is what Advent has prepared us for, and, presumably, has not quite done, or done fully. Still, still, there is a partial and winsome success at work among us -- we may not be well prepared, but we are well begun.

The account of the day of the Visitation, only days after the Annunciation, speaks of the Incarnation not yet fully brought forth, the Christ implicit, developing, growing, only just begun in the womb of the Virgin.

The end of Advent probably finds Christ in us in some similar state of development.

We may not yet be well-prepared to bring forth in our lives, to show forth in our faith, the full, fully developed Incarnation, the Christ, ready for manifestation through us to all around us. Perhaps the end of Advent finds him in our own lives, but only as yet in the womb of our faith, still being knit together in secret, not fully formed.

And yet, for those who know us and love us, there may already be enough for them to see, enough of the Christ already apparent in our lives, that they too will rejoice in our blessedness, and leap for joy over what we nurture and hope and intend, and struggle to bring forth, what, by God's grace, and through his abiding trust in us and our faithfulness, we may someday soon, if not quite yet, bring forth in our lives and show forth to the world.

Advent Four reminds us, not how late it is, but how early, that the conception has only just begun, the first announcement of our favored status and the role God asks us to fulfill has just been offered, the first confused and self-conscious stirrings of responsive faithfulness have been felt, encouraging us, assisting us to accept and embrace his plan for us, according to his Word, and, to respond to the movement of grace in our lives.

What is overtly proclaimed in the Annunciation to Mary is not the full story, or the final story, or the completed demonstration of either Mary's faith, or God's power. It is just the beginning.

So it may be, on this Sunday, that with us, we may not yet show much of any of the fulfillment of all our preparations, but we may feel in ourselves, and other who love us may see in our lives the real presence of Christ in our lives, at the core of our being - though he may be as deeply obscured in our lives as he is in the womb of Mary.

The full season of Advent presumably hoped that we would be prepared or close to prepared or almost nearly prepared, but the Fourth Sunday of Advent no longer presumes, that we are prepared, or will be prepared to bring forth Christ. It reminds us, finally and just in time, that God is prepared. And that is enough. Regardless of what we have done, or left undone, or not yet done, God will bring forth in us according to his word, we too are highly favored, and full of Grace.