Sermon for Dec. 24, 2024 (Advent IV)
Luke 1:26-38
Well, as far as the Church calendar is concerned, this is the fourth
and last Sunday of Advent – at least for the next few hours. Over the past three weeks, while the holiday
season has been revving up all around us, we’ve been hearing stories that seem
intended to keep us from thinking about the baby in the manger. We’ve heard about the coming of Christ at the
end of the age and about the work of John the Baptist to prepare the way of the
Lord. Now, finally, we get to hear a
story that mentions a baby.
It’s the story of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel comes and
tells Mary what God has in mind for her.
This is a story many of us have heard before; and in a way, that’s the
problem with it. We know it too
well. We know it so well it doesn’t surprise us much anymore.
It might help us get a handle on this story if we consider who it’s about. In one sense, the story’s about God – how God
works in the world and in our own lives.
The story makes it clear God specializes in the unexpected. Think about it: Our Creator decides the way
to bring people back into relationship with God and each other is to become one of those people. If that isn’t strange enough, God decides the
way to do it is by coming as a vulnerable newborn in a society where he’ll be
oppressed and victimized. On top of that,
God decides to do all this through a young woman at the bottom of the social
ladder – and a woman who isn’t even married.
In human terms, that’s a pretty unproductive situation God’s entering
into. But that’s the point: God takes
the raw material of life, raw material that doesn’t look very hopeful, and
turns it into something new. As the
angel says, “Nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
So, in one sense, the story is about God. But you can also see the story being mostly
about the baby Jesus. After all, this is
where he makes his entrance in Luke’s Gospel.
The angel says to Mary, not only will you conceive and bear a son
without your husband’s assistance, but “he will be great, and will be called
the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his
ancestor David” (1:32). So, from the
moment of Jesus’ introduction, we learn that he won’t simply be a great human
being, the king long awaited by the people of Israel. Instead, he'll be Son of God as well as Son
of Man. So the birth that’s about to
happen will be like no other birth before or since – even while it’s also just like every other birth,
before and since. So, you could
certainly say the story is about Jesus.
But,
of course, the story is very much about Mary.
Now we don’t know a lot about her.
The story is pretty sparse. We’re
told that she’s a virgin and that she’s engaged to a man named Joseph, a
descendant of King David. Other than
that, we have to fill in the blanks ourselves.
Mary was a young woman, probably somewhere in her mid-teens. Today, she might be a freshman or sophomore
in high school. But in Galilee 2,000
years ago, Mary’s teenage years weren’t about preparing her for later
life. Because Mary had reached
child-bearing age, a marriage had been arranged for her. Her father and Joseph had reached a deal
about the price Joseph would pay for her, and the time of their wedding was
coming soon. At 14 or so, Mary’s life
was set, and she had very few choices.
And so it was for every young woman in Galilee.
So, in the
story, Mary is minding her own business when suddenly an angel appears. This is no cutesy greeting-card angel with
little wings and fat, rosy cheeks. This
is Gabriel, a general in the heavenly army; and being in his presence is a
terrifying experience because, Scripture says, humans who stand in the presence
of God usually die. Reasonably, Mary is
scared and confused, wondering why a messenger of the Lord is saying she’s held
highly in God’s favor. So Gabriel gives
Mary his message: that she will bear a son and name him Jesus; that this child
will be called the Son of God; and that he will rule God’s people.
All that’s a
little much for a 14-year-old to take in, and she says, “What? How is that
gonna happen?” Gabriel doesn’t answer
the question directly but tells her that the child will be conceived through
the power of the Holy Spirit. And Mary
says, “Oh, come on. How can that be?” But Gabriel says, “You can believe me because
something very similar is happening to your relative, Elizabeth, who’s supposed
to be barren. Remember,” Gabriel says,
“with God, nothing is impossible.”
Then, remarkably, this newly pregnant teenager looks at the heavenly
general standing before her and says, “OK.
I am God’s servant. Let’s do this.”
What’s interesting is how Mary’s reaction evolves through the
story. She doesn’t get it at first; but
she comes to understand that God might be using her as an instrument of
something much bigger than herself, an instrument of God’s saving purposes. And in this, Mary stands in good
company.
Centuries before, God had come to Abraham and Sarah and had given them
news just as shocking as what Mary heard: that Sarah, who was very, very old,
would conceive and bear a son, Isaac.
Sarah was standing behind the entrance to their tent, listening to God
telling Abraham the news, and she laughed at the idea – until God asked her:
Well, why not? “Is anything too
wonderful for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14).
That made Sarah stop laughing and understand that she wasn’t just
a 90-year-old who was about to get pregnant.
She was God’s instrument. And when
the baby was born, she said with delight, “God has brought laughter for me;
everyone who hears will laugh with me” (Genesis 21:6). But her laughter had changed. She began by scoffing at God’s crazy idea;
now she was rejoicing at God’s fulfillment of the promise of new life through
her.
Like Sarah, Mary reacts to her message from God like any of us
might. First, she’s confused, even scared
to think what this angel might have up his sleeve. Then she reacts with disbelief. “How can this be?” she demands. She wants to understand, but it just seems like
too much. Virgins don’t even bear
children, much less children who are to be called the Son of God. But Gabriel reminds her that God’s ways are
not our ways, that God isn’t limited by the small expectations with which we
limit ourselves. The angel helps Mary
see that what’s miraculous to us is all in a day’s work for God. And when she hears about the example of her
relative Elizabeth, I’ll bet Mary remembers that story of Sarah, too, the story
of new life springing from impossibility.
And finally Mary understands who she is:
“Here I am, the servant of the Lord,” she says to Gabriel. “Let it be with me according to your word.”
So really, this story is all about
Mary. But ironically, by saying “yes” to
God, by allowing her life to be turned upside down so that God’s purposes could
be accomplished, Mary makes this story about us. She shows us how we’re called to live as
followers of Christ. Like us, Mary’s
suspicious when God shows a personal interest in her. Like us, Mary’s afraid when she learns what
God has in mind for her. Like us, Mary
has all sorts of questions about how this is going to work, and she’s courageous
enough to ask those questions directly.
But ultimately, she says “yes” to God’s crazy way of bringing new life
to the world because she recognizes who she truly is: a “servant of the Lord” –
like us.
This servant, this peasant on the margins of her society, has come to
be called nothing less than the bearer of God.
And that’s the role Mary models for us now. This bearer of God shows us how to bear
Christ to those around us. She shows us
that when we open ourselves to the work God calls us to do, we can help bring
to life possibilities far bigger than anything we could imagine. She teaches us this most astounding truth of
Christian life: that you never know what glory might come from simply saying,
“Yes.”
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