4^th Sunday of Advent

December 21, 2008

The Gospel passage our good deacon just read is very familiar to us.  Growing up in the church, we’ve heard this story our whole lives.  We know the characters and we know the action, but recognizing the plot doesn’t guarantee that we accept its meaning.  When we hear the “Annunciation” narrative, the account of the Archangel Gabriel coming to Mary with startling news, we are often perplexed.  The scene is strange and foreign to our experience.  If the report were just another one of the New Testament miracle stories, we wouldn’t worry so much about our reaction.  But this is the beginning point of the Christian religion.  This is the moment where our faith becomes unique and separates itself from everything that precedes or follows the encounter.  Therefore, we want to be convinced and reassured by Luke’s record, but often we are left with questions.  Perhaps the difficulty arises because we are hearing a 1^st century report with 21^st century ears.  Perhaps we are skeptical because we’ve forgotten the original context.  Let us then consider the world as it was when God determined the time was right for his Son to come among us.

On the day the Angel Gabriel was supposed to have visited Mary, the majority of the civilized world believed that the sun came up every morning because Apollo, the sun god, hitched his horses to his chariot and dragged the golden light across the sky.  The Romans and the people they conquered believed hurricanes and storms at sea were caused by Neptune’s anger.  Every people and nation on the face of the earth, with the exception of the Jews, believed in multiple gods.  They put their trust in deities that would turn themselves into animals and chase attractive women through the woods.  These people inhabited a pre-scientific universe.  All natural phenomenons were explained by supernatural intervention.  This is how humankind understood and made sense of their world in the 1^st century.

From our modern day perspective, the Jews of that time had the most elevated and rational belief system.  One God, trustworthy, responsible, restrained, consistently motivated by a superior moral foundation was where the Jews put their faith and aligned their loyalty.  Even so, their experience with the one true God was different from ours 2000 years later.  They expected to interact with God in very tangible, personal ways.  They expected visions and visitations.  In the absence of other possible explanations, they saw the hand, voice and spirit of God everywhere.  So, God came to his people in the way they could comprehend and accept.  He made himself and his purpose known with images and language that would comfort and make sense to a “primitive” people.  “The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.’”  This was a better explanation for Mary than any discussion of spontaneous regeneration, cell replication, or cloning. 

God had been promising a Messiah, a deliverer for his people for years and years and years and decades and centuries.  If the Son of God arrived in 2009 instead of year 1, the experience and the written record would no doubt be very different. A nd this is so because God always reveals himself in ways his beloved can trust and believe.  God always reveals himself with integrity, his manner of interaction changes as we evolve.  What remains constant is God’s commitment and care of us.

We see that concern in how God set the stage for the arrival of Christ.  Of all the possible human couples God could select to raise his Son, he chooses Mary and Joseph.  He surveys the vast population and designates a particular man and particular woman as the holy child’s parents.  He is specific and sure.  We don’t have a detailed account about the personalities or history of this couple, but what we do know demonstrates God’s careful intent.  It will be imperative that Jesus grows up in a household that knows and follows the Law and the Prophets that he is instructed in the Holy Scriptures and is well aware of the Father’s expectations and covenants.

Mary is a descendant of the tribe of Aaron.  Aaron and his line were the priests of ancient Israel.  Their heirs took that heritage seriously.  Mary and her relatives would have known God’s word and would have been deeply faithful.  Maintaining a vibrant prayer life and keeping all 613 commandments would have been important to Mary.  Joseph came from the house of David.  His heritage was centered on kingship and leadership.  His ancestor was the youngest, weakest, least appreciated son who was picked out by God’s messenger Samuel to rule over a united Israel.  From his family history, Joseph knew that God sometimes comes to you with an unnerving proposition.  Sometimes God acts in unexpected, very counterintuitive ways.  Joseph’s natural be response would be to pay attention and accept the call when God’s herald brings news. 

God chose Mary and Joseph well.  He looked for and found two individuals with a deep faith, a willing obedience, and an extraordinary strength of character.  When God’s angel descended and disrupted their lives, they each said, “Yes.”  And their “yes” is what made our salvation possible.  Because a faith-filled, spiritually centered carpenter said, “Yes, I will stand beside this woman and raise her child despite the snickers and the whispers and the unexpected, unplanned, highly unusual circumstances,” we received the promised Messiah.  Because a conscientious, spiritually mature young girl said “Yes, here I am Lord, your servant, let it be with me according to your word,” the Christ child was allowed a place to grow, to become human, to grow up safe, nurtured and loved.  Their “yes” was essential to our future.  Their “yes” is why a poor carpenter and a 1^st century, 14 year old with no known last name became immortalized.  Each one of us is incredibly indebted to their response because their acceptance was required. 

God does not impose his will on us.  As his beloved, we must choose and accept his plan for us.  As Archbishop Tutu is fond of saying, “By himself, God will not.  By ourselves, we cannot.  But together we can change the world and all reality.”  Certainly, Mary’s “yes” to God changed this world.  Her assent was critical and came at a high price to her personal happiness.  When the young girl agreed to God’s plan to carry “the Son of the Most High,” she did not know how their lives would unfold.  She did not know she would be forced to deliver her child far from home, away from family, in a stranger’s stable.  She did know that before he was a toddler, they would become refugees in Egypt, fleeing their homeland ahead of murderous soldiers.  She had no idea she would lose him in Jerusalem when he was twelve, nor that this would be a foretaste of what would happen twenty-one years later.  When she told the angel let it be so, she did not see her life from the star to the cross.  She could not have anticipated that miraculous, tragic, ultimately resurrected journey.  However, when Mary gave her consent, she did know she was taking on a significant risk.  She was well aware she could lose all security and respectability.  She would have assumed that her family would be nervous and want her put away.  She would be sure that Joseph, a good man, but a man of this time and culture, would want to separate himself from her unprecedented condition.  Even unaware of future details, Mary knew she was accepting trouble along with God’s favor.

What we learn from Luke’s account is God’s grace with Mary.  It is true that he called her to a difficult task.  It is true he asked her to take on a hard role, but God did not leave her alone in that stress.  Soon after the angel departs, Mary leaves Nazareth and goes to her Aunt Elizabeth’s house.  She goes to escape the gossip and questioning.  She goes to find support and comfort.  Together, the two women navigate their pregnancies.  Mary stays with Elizabeth for three months.  She has a good friend in her relative. Elizabeth, resigned to being childless, is ecstatic that God has intervened and given her the opportunity to be a mother.  His personal involvement in her life makes it easy for Elizabeth to accept and encourage Mary.  Mary does not have to go through her trial alone.

This is the nature of God.  When he calls any of us to a difficult mission, or a hard journey, he always provides us a comforting grace.  He does not send us out unprotected or unsupported.  With Mary, Elizabeth was her companion at the beginning.  The beloved disciple was with her at the cross.  God always sends the necessary grace.

And this is the meaning of Luke’s peculiar passage.  Told in an ancient language in a primitive time, God’s essential truth endures.  He had a grand plan for us.  He accomplished his promise.  He sent his Son to save us because one of our own, a fellow human being, said “yes” to God’s call.  And to her “yes,” God sent the help, the grace she needed.  As God did for Mary, so he does for us.  In every trial and mission, there will be his sure hand.  The trick, dear ones, is having eyes to see the grace he sends.  In the “yeses” we take on, do we recognize the Elizabeths, the kind innkeepers, the steadfast Josephs, the disciples at the cross that God puts in our lives?  Mary accepted God’s plan for her and expected his help and grace in the doing.  May we do likewise.