Click Here For Worship Service Video
Probably the two most impactful words a woman and a man will ever hear are, “You’re Pregnant!” The reactions to these words range from ecstatic joy to absolute dread. Once confronted with these words inevitably we will find ourselves overwhelmed with the weight of imagining all the responsibilities that come along with raising a child. And soon, once the initial shock wears off, we begin to dream. We begin to wonder who the child will look like, be like; what to name the child. Will the child grow up to be somebody important? Inevitably we begin to question ourselves. Will we be good parents? Will the child know how much we love it?
With all these questions we become fixated on the future, obsessed with a dreadful kind of hope, and preoccupied with our ability to nurture what we love…and here, this morning thinking about Mary and God and all that I’m thinking maybe it was for reasons such as these that God chose to enter the world by the way of an infant born to Mary and Joseph. Maybe these future oriented feelings and preoccupations are how we are to be “postured” within ourselves with respect to God. Maybe God wants us fixated on what he’s going to do in the future. Maybe when it comes to our relationship with God he wants us to have this kind of dreadful, obsessive hope. Maybe God wants us taking seriously our responsibility to nurture the future here in the present. The best way to take care of the future world is to take care of this one right now as a pregnant woman cares for herself to care for the baby within her.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. This is the Mary Sunday in Advent. This is Mary’s day to shine. So let’s ponder Mary for a moment. I think it reasonable to imagine Mary had all those parent-type questions too, but things had to be more than a little different for her. She got some of her maternal questions answered…by an angel. That had to be freaky. From the mouth of an angel she heard those scary, overwhelming words, “You’re going to be pregnant”. There’s some Twilight Zone in that.
Maybe we can say that Mary was lucky to have a few of her parental questions answered. She knew it was going to be a boy. She didn’t have to worry about what to name him. The angel said his name would be Jesus. She did not have to worry about who her son would become. He would be the Son of the Most High whatever that would be. Mary got to know what her son would be when he grew up…a king. But not just any king; “The King”, the expected One, the Messiah.
Mary’s son, Jesus, was going to be the king who would turn the world upside-down with God’s Kingdom. As Mary sings in her song, through her son God was going to bring the powerful down from their thrones and lift up the lowly. Through her son God would fill the hungry and turn the rich away empty. Her son would be the fulfillment of a promise made long ago to Abraham, that his seed, his offspring, would be a blessing to all nations.
We cannot be sure Mary wanted to hear all that. It is overwhelming enough just to wonder who and what your child will become. I can’t imagine actually knowing what my children will grow up and be. I really don’t want to know. But, that is just what the angel told Mary and to put it oddly, Mary had to endure knowing that for all her life.
Mary’s first response to all this Good News being dumped on her was to deny even the possibility that she could be pregnant. She asked, “How can this be since I am a virgin?” Certain necessary things had to happen before she could become pregnant and none of that had as of yet. The angel’s response to this seemed even more impossible. The Holy Spirit of God would cause this pregnancy. Her child would literally be the Son of God. Imagine how that’s going to be whispered around town. Mary is suddenly somehow pregnant and she’s saying God’s the father. No wonder she went off to live with Cousin Elizabeth for a while.
Speaking of Elizabeth, the angel allowed Mary a sign to know that God inspired pregnancy was indeed going to happen. She just had to go on down to her cousin Elizabeth’s house and she would see her proof. Elizabeth, the barren one, Elizabeth, the one too old to give birth, was pregnant too. God was in a baby mood.
So there stood Mary, pregnant with impossibility, filled with a dreadful hope. How would she raise this child, the Holy One, the Son of God? I think it was probably too much for Mary to comprehend. How could she realize that in her womb God would be undertaking a new creation? And not just the creation of a new life, in her womb God was creating new life for all humanity. How could she know? Mary knew that in her womb she would carry a king, but did she realize that he would be God’s appointed one, the unique agent of God’s rule, and how that would pan out throughout history? Through her son God himself would rule. Her son would set in place the Kingdom of God in which there would be justice for all. His rule would/will eventually overturn all the powers that oppress humans, even the powers of sin and death. How could Mary realize that?
Well, we cannot say whether Mary was aware of the full weight of her responsibility. What parent is? But we do know that Mary responded in faith. She bravely accepted her call with the words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; Let it be with me according to your word.” Mary accepted her call and she became the mother of new life and the one through whom God’s rule would come into the world. When the response is faith, the impossibilities of God become possible.
So here we sit on the fourth Sunday of Advent. By tradition we retell the story of Mary the Mother of Jesus and honor her faith. But this is also a day upon which we ponder our similarities with Mary. Like Mary, we too are God’s favored ones. For some unknown reason God has chosen us to be recipients of his great love through adoption as his children. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is also with us, overshadowing us, in us. God’s presence is in our midst acting through us. God is with us always acting for us in our best interest. In fact, we are the proof of God’s amazing love for his creation and especially for those who love him. These are perplexing thoughts, and as Mary pondered them so should we.
Another similarity we have is that we, God’s favoured ones gathered together, we like Mary are pregnant with the reality that the impossible is possible. The Spirit of God has come upon us; the power of God overshadows us. Within us is the Son of God. Within us is God’s rule. Within us is the agency by which God overturns the proud and the powerful and lifts up the humble and poor. Do we realize this? Do we realize that we are pregnant with God’s spirit, that through us God is bringing new life and his kingdom into this world? We have a great responsibility, a great calling, to let God’s new life come forth from us. How shall we respond?
Shall we respond with denial saying, “How can this be? Not us. We’re not worthy. We’re tired. We’re too old. We don’t have the time. Isn’t there somebody else?” But you know how it is. We just like making excuses and that just doesn’t fly. Surely, we can have only one response, Faith…Faith to believe the impossible possible. Faith to believe we have a calling, a calling to God’s great purpose in history. Faith to love this new child that we are pregnant with in our old age. It may seem impossible, but God is and will bring forth new life and his kingdom through us. With God nothing is impossible. All we have to do is listen to this voice of compassion that God has placed in us, kicking us in the gut from the inside out and join in as God makes things unfold. So, this the Sunday before Christmas Day let us each say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.”
