She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it.
He told her what the child was to be named and who he was to be, something about the mystery that was to come upon her, “You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,” he said.
As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.[1]
Frederick Buechner in his Biblical Who’s Who Peculiar Treasures tells a bit of the encounter between the angel Gabriel sent by God to a young girl named Mary. We hear from the angel’s point of view how very astonishing this story is that has come to be known as the Annunciation. On this last Sunday of Advent we hear in Luke’s Gospel this intimate moment between Mary and the angel Gabriel in which everything begins with a young’s girl’s “yes” to God’s proposal.
It is a familiar story that still has the potential to take our breath away. First there is the angel Gabriel who bursts into the life of an unsuspecting teenager named Mary to tell her she has found favor with God and that she will carry in her body a baby who will be the Son of God. There is Mary, the young girl, who listens carefully, ponders this amazing greeting, asks a question that gets right to the heart of the matter, “How can this be?”, and then with a faith that sets the highest bar for discipleship, answers “Here am I.”
This encounter between Mary and the angel is heard only in Luke’s Gospel. It is set in a particular time and place. The angel comes to Mary when her cousin Elizabeth is six month along in her pregnancy. Mary lives in Nazareth, an insignificant village in Galilee, far from places of political and religious importance.
We hear that Mary is betrothed but not yet married to a man whose name is Joseph. We suspect that she is quite young as betrothals were usually arranged between families when the women were still girls. We hear that Mary was favored by God. Later in Luke’s gospel we will be told that she is obedient, thoughtful, believing, worshipful, and devoted to Jewish law and piety. But none of these qualities are offered as reasons for God to choose her–that reason is known only to God.
We know so little about Mary. Jaroslav Pelikan who studied and wrote about Mary, says that you could copy on an eight-and-half-by-eleven sheet everything there is about her in the New Testament.” [2] But this has not diminished her reception by people of faith. She is seen in the church as both the ultimate mother, the perfect woman, an intercessor for God. Mary belongs far beyond the church hierarchy who constantly seek to manage her presence and her power. For Mary speaks to the people and it is in the hearts of those who most need God’s presence, that Mary seems to pierce most deeply. She is seen as the one who reflects our very human nature, who through God’s great beneficence was empowered to bring into the world the Word made flesh—to make God’s love present with us. To the poor and marginalized, Mary offers compassion, love, and protection. She makes present God’s never ending love to a people who have experienced nothing but abandonment. To those who suffer in body, mind, and spirit, Mary offers the hope of God’s healing. Mary, whose courageous response to God,” Here am I” reminds all of us who stand at this threshold to Christmas that God’s favor to Mary is extended to all as God waits for us to say “yes” to the work of God.
The angel comes to Mary without any action on Mary’s part. Just so, God seeks us out. Reminding us how much we are loved. That God is always with us. And no matter how much the world may fling us about, we are not to be afraid. God is here inviting us to open ourselves to God’s saving love in the world.
Mary serves as our model, our example, our witness, our sister who voices for us a Christmas expectancy and a Christmas response. Mary’s “yes” carries into our post-Christmas lives where God is constantly at work—doing all kinds of things great and small, mighty, miraculous and everyday. God calls each of us to witness to God’s work and share this wondrous activity with others.
God continues to interrupt the lives of people, using us all to bring healing to the world. Looking around at this community, I see God’s favor and I witness all the wondrous things God is doing in and through us. Daily you offer yourselves in service to others. Daily you ponder God’s invitation and how God’s mission can live and grow in us. Think of all the opportunities that have come to us and imagine all that will be revealed as we continue to take our faith, God’s story and God’s love out into the world. There is so much that God wants to accomplish through us. We are all pregnant with possibility.
Mary recognizes what all who follow Christ must recognize—that we are totally dependent on God in living our lives and in doing the work we have been given. In our reading this morning from the first book of Samuel. David, who having won peace and stability, sitting in his fine house of cedar, offers to build a comparable dwelling for God. But God reminds David through the prophet Nathan, that it is God who is the provider. God will not be controlled by temple, tent or tabernacle and that is in God’s uncontainable freedom that God has lifted David from his role leading the sheep to becoming the King of Israel and Judea, providing a place for his people. And it is this God of uncontainable freedom who enters into a young girl from Nazareth who will bear the Son of God.
Luke Timothy Johnson says, “the living God always moves ahead of us. Our faith must respond to this reality by “constantly catching up with the work of God who acts before we do and most often catches us by surprise.” [3] The angel reminds Mary and us that being incapable of conceiving in and of ourselves is not the end of the story for “nothing is impossible with God.”
Like Mary, we are not forced or coerced to be obedient to God’s working in us. In God we have freedom. Mary acts freely when she offers herself as a servant of the Lord. But she recognizes that her calling to be the Mother of God is her only true choice, because it is consistent with who she actually is. Mary listens, wonders, questions, commits—guiding us in considering our actions in life, and it sets a way for us to fully enter into relationship with God..
Mary was not extraordinary. She was not sinless or a perpetual holy vessel. Rather she was fully human, ordinary, loved, and called. This young girl who was among the most powerless people in her society—who was young in a world that valued age; a woman in a world ruled by men; poor in a society where power was held by those with great wealth; without either a husband or a child that validated her significance in the community—was found to be favored by God and this speaks to God’s surprising activity in the world that constantly reverses human expectation.
God enters into the smallest, most ordinary parts of the world. God embraces the tiniest details of our lives inviting us to be a part of God’s actions. Throughout history, God calls ordinary people to change the world. Mary sings of God who will liberate the lowly, fill the hungry with good things, and scatter the ones on the thrones to the far winds. God’s call to Mary has begun this great reversal.
A powerless young girl said “yes” and gave birth to a child destined to transform all of creation. Her faith affirmed her trust in God’s goodness and her willingness to be a servant of God. This is Mary’s story. And it is the story of many who let their lives be something far greater than they could possibly imagine. People who are willing to say, “Here am I” and accept their place in the larger work that brings God’s mercy to the world. People like Ruby Bridges, Malala Yousafzai, and Mary from Nazareth.
Our question to ponder and respond to on this fourth Sunday in Advent is how is God asking us to give birth to Christ in the world? As we step from Advent to Christmas, Mary’s story calls us from who we think we are to who God calls us to be—from an observant believer to a disciple who confesses Christ to the world.
My hope and prayer is that as we enter–yet again–into this familiar story…
…a story of a young girl finding out that she would bear God into the world as a baby boy.
…a story of the Lord of hosts–our savior–born and laid in a manger, whose power is found in vulnerability and selfless love.
that we might discover–once again—a truth about God’s incredible commitment to us and this world. And that this might lead us to watch for the ways that God is acting within human history…in our very lives…in this very world…to bring about salvation for us all.
You don’t have to construct a perfect life.
God already has.
You are Mary,
great with yourself,
gift of God,
conceived by the Holy Spirit.
God is doing this in you,
becoming,
already perfectly forgiving.
Let this wonder unfold within you.
How will you live,
knowing you are chosen
to bear the divine presence into the world?
Love that child,
care for yourself as if her life depends on it,
prepare for his coming.
Like a room you fearlessly remodel
and decorate with long, tiring effort,
you make of your life a new place
for holiness
to be born in you. [4]
[1] Frederick Buechner. Peculiar Treasures. (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1979), 113.
[2] Robert Sullivan. “A Meditation on Mary” Mary, Blessed Art Thou Among Women. (New York: Life Books, 2014), 10.
[3] Luke Timothy Johnson. The Living Gospel. (New York: Continuum, 2004), 43.
[4] Steve Garnaas-Holmes. Unfolding Light. www.unfoldinglight.net