“Seeking God’s Love in Challenging Times”
Luke 1: 26-38 & Psalm 85 ~ Northwood UC ~ December 17, 2023
“We're expecting!” When someone says this, it can, in purely grammatical terms, mean just about anything: we're expecting a phone call... a package... a visitor...we’re expecting you. But it doesn't mean any of those things in this case, does it? When a woman says, “I'm expecting”, we know it can mean only one thing... that she is expecting to give birth to a baby. We wonder: when is it due? And the mother says “I am in the third month” so that we can calculate the rest. Let's see nine months take away 3 equals. Notice that Luke dates the arrival of the angel Gabriel at Mary’s doorstep by calculating when it occurs. It occurs during her cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy. In the sixth month, says Luke... in the sixth month of baby John the Baptist’s growth in Elizabeth’s womb. The Angel comes to tell Mary the news... the news that she is expecting a child.
Mary cannot believe the angel’s announcement...she cannot believe that she is expecting! How can this be, she asks. It is not possible. Women do not have children on their own. Babies don't arrive ‘out of the blue’. It cannot be! But the Angel Gabriel is insistent. Yes, Mary is to give birth, and not just to any child, but to one who will rise to the throne of King David. One who will reign over a kingdom that will have no end. The Annunciation: that is what we call this brief theological scene, is the moment when the angel announces the good news to Mary. If you look carefully at your church calendars, you can see this holy day marked... right there on March the 25th. 9 months prior to Christmas. And here we are, 8 short days from the birth, listening to the news ourselves... and, like Mary, we are wondering what to make of it all.
Of course, we are used to receiving amazing, unbelievable news. Buy a lottery ticket, win the big one, live happily ever after. Shop today, no payments until the next year. Yet, the announcement we hear this morning is greater than them all! The announcement is that the profound meaning of Christmas is not to be found in boxes wrapped and lying beneath the tree... nor in the bills left to be paid in January. The announcement reminds us that to believe in Christmas, is to believe in something even more unlikely and impossible than that. It points us to Jesus as the impossible possibility at the center of our celebrations. And they remind us of the very first Christmas ad... the Annunciation…given to Mary.
The ad... I mean the Annunciation... startles Mary. “Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you”. Mary perplexed by such an introduction and she wonders just what it can mean. Favored one”? Mary has, apparently, done nothing particularly noteworthy in her life. There is no mention of her great faith... no acts of great charity…no depth of spiritual life. Mary is a young Jewish peasant; a girl engaged to one of King David's thousands of descendants. “Favored one”? Mary, surely, must wonder why. She is not alone in this wondering. Our Protestant ancestors wondered, too. It is one of the reason that they removed statues of Mary from our churches and stopped the practice of venerating Mary. They would be aghast to see this carved statue of Mary as you do on the screen, in our Protestant church. It would remind them of what seemed a misplaced favoring of this one ordinary woman... and for what reason?
Of course, there is no “reason” for Mary to be “favored”. And this is precisely the point. The Greek New Testament is more clear on the rendering of this matter. There you will find that Gabriel says “greetings, graced one”. Mary is selected by God, not because she has earned the right to bear this anointed child. Her pregnancy is purely a gift of God's amazing grace. Or as Gabriel puts it later: “for nothing will be impossible with God”. Nothing impossible…this will be the story of Jesus’ birth, his life and of course, his death. It will be a story of impossible healings and miraculous feedings, a tale of walls being torn down and of Jesus rising up, even after death. Gabriel is not only telling Mary about her pregnancy... he is alerting her to what is about to take place through her child... namely, the impossible possibility of God's kingdom breaking in upon the ordinary, everyday world. The impossible possibility that God is birthing!
And to all of this, Mary says “yes”. That is what she says: “yes! Here am I! The servant of the Lord; Let it be with me according to your word.” And with this, the Angel Gabriel leaves... because with his mission complete. Mary accepts the message as truth. And with that, Mary is the first believer. She believes that she is miraculously pregnant... but more than that, she believes that in her, God is doing an extraordinary new thing. The impossible being made possible!
I think that this type of faith is what allows us to live into such challenging times…back then…and even today. Mary says “yes” to God and allows God’s power to unfold into the midst of human life. Can you say “yes” to God’s impossible possibility being birthed? Actually, you already are! We are all seeing this occur in many instances in the world today: people saying ‘yes’ to God and allowing the extraordinary to be birthed among the ordinary. This week, the White Gift items were delivered through the Cloverdale Community Kitchen; the Shoeboxes were assembled…and we see the power of God’s love at work! Later today, people will gather, online and in-person, for our Quiet Christmas and we will be amazed at the power of God’s love in healing our broken hearts as we navigate through the grief journey. And next week, people will attend worship services (perhaps not something of their normal routine) as they try and take in the depth of meaning of the season: that God’s extraordinary is birthing into the ordinary. Through all these varied ways, we will come and ‘adore him’ and allow his light to shine into the world as little Christ lights ourselves.
And now we are starting to see why so many statues like this one have been created throughout Christian history? I had a statue similar to the one on the screen at my seminary, where I studied for ministry. Donated to VST, no one knew what to do with it. After all, what is a Protestant school supposed to do with the statue that venerates the Mother Mary? Eventually she found a home in the office of our Professor of Church History. Dr. Hobbs was interesting, he had her facing a statue of similar size of Martin Luther, the great German church reformer! If you look closely, you can see that Mary is holding a church. Statues such as this were once made especially for each congregation. Imagine Mary holding Northwood United Church in her arms and being called “Our Lady of Northwood”. Why? For protection? Sure. But more, as a reminder that Mary was the first believer... she is the first one to say “yes” to God in Christ. Seen in this light, she is, in other words, the founder, and a symbol, of the church. Mary, a humble peasant, favored by the grace of God to bear the body of Christ in the world. Not that different, I might say, than all of us. Ordinary people through whom God is doing extraordinary things. At the end of Bible, Mary will stand on the great dragon as pictured in the Book of Revelation. Mary will trample the forces of evil which had once tempted a woman and man in the garden of Eden. All by responding to the news with her one word: yes!
To be Christian at Christmas is to join Mary in singing ‘yes’ to God! Can it be true? Can it be as impossibly possible as this? That those who, by the grace of God, hear the message…believe it…and become themselves bearers of the Christ light in the world? Who knows how many find it within to place their trust... to place their life... in God's hands? Who knows how Mary finds it within her to place her trust... to place her life... in God's hands. Who knows how we come to believe that in Jesus Christ, God has already upended the proud and mighty and is even now uplifting the lowly in the hungry. Who knows, indeed. But this we do know. Gabriel is right: “nothing will be impossible with God!”
Amen.