Luke
1:26-38
Advent
4
December
21, 2014
William G. Carter
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in
Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of
the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said,
“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by
his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found
favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you
will name him Jesus. 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. He
will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no
end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and
the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born
will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in
her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who
was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary
said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your
word.”
Then the angel departed
from her.
I love this story. But I
wonder how much more there is to it. The storyteller doesn’t go into much
detail. We get the summary without much
more information. We learn who, what, where, how, and why. Who: a maiden named Mary. What: a male child who will be named Jesus.
Where: Nazareth, a village on the edge of
the hill country in Galilee. How: by
the Holy Spirit. Why: to rule over us
like his ancestor David, and to do so forever.
That’s the summary, and
it goes as planned. Mary is realistically curious, but she does not push back. The
angel Gabriel gives her the most remarkable news. She only asks, “How?” She
receives a holy answer, not a biological one. Then she agrees to it all,
saying, “Let it be with me, according to your word.” Her level of trust is amazing.
At the beginning of a book
filled with people who come to faith, Luke describes her as the very first one.
She will also stick around to the end. When Luke names those who gather in
prayer and praise after the resurrection, he mentions “Mary, the mother of
Jesus, as well as his brothers” (Acts 1:14).
Today we hear how it all
began. We have the short version. Long before the miracle of the birth, there
is the miracle of the mother who trusts the word of an angel. That’s the
miracle I want to know more about. How does Mary come to trust? That’s the
miracle that I ponder.
Can you remember when
you first learned to trust? I spent some time yesterday with the man who taught
me to ride a bike. He didn’t simply point to the two-wheeler and say, “Get on
it.” There was a three-wheeler long before it. And when I wanted a bigger bike,
he pointed to the lawn mower and said, “Earn the money.” When I got pretty
close to the financial goal, he announced, “I can see you’re serious about it.”
So we got in the paneled station wagon and traveled to a shop where there was a
genuine imitation of a Schwinn for us to take home.
Back in our own garage,
he took out socket wrenches, installed a couple of training wheels, held the
bicycle upright, and said, “Let’s give it a try.” Those were the days before
helmets, you understand. He got me started, then he ran alongside. If I
wobbled, he helped me catch my balance. If I tipped, he was there to catch me.
And we kept at it until I was strong enough to do it myself. That’s how I
learned to trust.
So we take the leap: how
is it that somebody comes to trust in God?
Mary is promised a
child. The little boy will be a small miracle and a major commitment. If children
come into your life, you know it’s a lot more than rescheduling your yoga
lessons and scaling back on your tennis games. The child rearranges your life.
And Mary says, “Yes, let it be.”
She had a good man, a
man named Joseph. It wasn’t clear he would keep her after hearing the news. The
announcement would be difficult and awkward, especially since the marriage had
not yet taken place. She could tell him, “It’s from the Holy Spirit,” but would
he raise an eyebrow? Or slip away in embarrassment? Could Mary trust God even
with the ambiguity of what might happen when Joseph got the news?
Luke doesn't say. He
doesn't fuss with the details. What he says is what she did. She said yes to
God.
I am going to guess she
practiced trust like some people practice the trumpet. It’s not something you merely
think about, it’s something you do. She kept at it. The trumpeter plays the
scales, exercises both lips and lungs, tries out some notes when nobody is
around. We get better at the things we practice, and trust is like that. If we develop
a habit of saying yes to God in the small things, when the really big matter
comes, we are prepared to say yes for that too.
Picture the young Jewish
woman in the small village. Every Sabbath, she goes to the synagogue. She sits
with the other women, and stays out of sight as was the custom. She sings the
psalms, listens to the promises of God, joins in the prayers, and goes home to
light the candles. Every week she does this. It shapes who she is.
Within the home, she
learns the commandments of God: love the neighbor, gives alms to the needy, do
justice, walk humbly. When she sees the beggar on the street, she reaches in
her pocket to find a coin, and offers it with her blessing. It is a small thing,
but it shapes her character. She sees the value of living like this.
So it isn’t entirely out
of the blue that the angel comes with an enormous assignment. It’s mostly out
of the blue, but not entirely, for Mary already knows how to trust. She has
kept the commandments. She has lived as God instructed. When Gabriel says, “You
shall carry a child, and bear God's Savior into the world,” she knows the announcement
comes from God, the baby comes from God, and if this wild, unimaginable assignment
is ever going to work, it’s because it carried, in no small part, on the
shoulders of God.
So Mary says, “Let it happen.”
That’s her way of saying yes. That’s her way of trusting what she cannot yet
see. She offers a simple yes, in spite of all the coming complications. And do
you know why? Because her “yes” is her decision to go along with what God is already
doing in the world. It’s the same sort of “yes” we are invited to speak each
day.
Let me say it straight: God
wants to rescue the world. Not abandon the world, but to rescue it. That is
heaven's mission. We can ignore this, or we can obstruct this, or we can say
yes because we want to be part of that. It's just that simple and just that important.
Each day God rolls up the Divine Sleeves, and begins again on repairing the
world. It’s long and tedious work, made worse by so many people running amuck. But
that’s what this is all about – the mission of God aimed toward the earth.
The Jewish mystics had a
phrase they used: “tikkun olam.” It is a wonderful phrase. It means “taking the
world in for repairs.” When we say “yes” to God, it affirms our trust that this
is what God intends to do: to fix all that is broken, to restore what has been
twisted out of shape.
If we trust there is such
a God, we can trust that God wishes to heal all that is ill, that God ceases
all that destroys, and promises to mend all that has been torn apart. The same
God who keeps sending babies into the world will send Mary’s child to all of us.
That Little One will grow up to teach us that every child is to be regarded as
our neighbor. He will show us how every child of God is to be given respect and
encouragement. And he will run alongside all who trust him until they keep from
wobbling, ever ready to also catch them if they fall.
This is the kind of God
we have. We know it because we light the candles, sing the psalms, listen to
the holy promises, and care for those in need. In the thick of it all, we learn
what God really wants to do: to rescue the world, one skinned knee or one
bruised heart at a time.
We can be part of this,
just as Mary was part of it. All she did was to say yes. Yes to God, Yes to all
God wishes to get done. Yes to the Holy Child who comes among us. Yes to him as
he leads us on God’s way. So we have the one word that unlocks the human heart,
the one word that enrolls us in the work of heaven on earth. It is the single
word where trust begins and faith takes root.
Keep that word close at
hand. Speak it when you sense you can be an emissary of heaven and a force for good and let it be a life-changing word for you. Don’t be
afraid. The word is “yes.”
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