It’s been just a couple of days since we celebrated Jesus’ birth and now the Sunday readings ratchet forward forty days to His presentation in the temple. This is the first of many appearances Jesus would make in the temple, culminating with Holy Week. But this one is His first and it is filled with prophetic fulfillment and significance. If you run the numbers from Luke, it’s been 490 days since the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah the priest to announce that he and his wife Elizabeth were going to conceive a son in their old age and name him John. 490 days later, Jesus makes His first appearance in the same temple. 70 weeks.

Today, on this fourth and last Sunday of the season of Advent, the Gospel takes a kinder and gentler tone than we’ve had over the last two weeks with John the Baptizer. Today we have two very unlikely women meeting in a town of Judah. Two expectant mothers get together, which isn’t all that unusual in and of itself, especially considering they are related. But consider this for a moment: one is in the third trimester of her pregnancy even as she’s in the senior years of her life. And the other has just begun her pregnancy as a virgin. Nothing is impossible with God.

“I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (Luke 7:18-28)

The world’s measure of greatness and God’s measure of greatness are two completely different things. The world measures greatness in terms of power, prestige, influence, celebrity, fame, fortune. As we come to the end of the calendar year, we will get the inevitable greatest lists: the sexiest men, the sexiest women, the most influential people, the richest people, the most powerful people. The movers, the shakers. That’s who the world labels with the word “greatness.”

You know it’s Advent when John the Baptizer shows up. Just when you were preparing to have a holly, jolly Christmas with chestnuts roasting on an open fire, sleighbells ring ring ring-a-ling, and Santas belting out their friendly ho-ho-hos, along comes John, and suddenly all the fun seems to drain right out of the season.