Luke 1:26--38
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Smuggling God Into The World
The extraordinary occurs in the ordinary, the uncommon in the common, the divine in the human. This is the mystery we celebrate in Christmas. Where ever love is in human form, something of God is there too, in divine form. Our task is to “keep our eyes skinned“, open for the miracle which is hidden in the common.
It wasn’t as easy as it looks, believing this promise and living with the mystery.
Consider Mary as Barbara Brown Taylor seeks to capture the moment the angel comes to her.
“If you decide to say No you simply drop your eyes and refuse to look up until you know the angel has left the room and you are alone again.
Then you smooth your hair and go back to your spinning or your reading or whatever it is that is most familiar to you and pretend that nothing has happened...Or you can set your book down and listen to a strange creature’s strange idea. You can decide to take part in a plan you did not choose, doing things you do not know how to do for reasons you con not entirely understand. You can take part in a thrilling and dangerous scheme with no script and no guarantees. You can agree to smuggled God into the world inside your own body.” (Mothers of God, pp. 150-53)
We stand with Mary and Joseph this morning in pure amazement at the wonder of Christmas and how God did it and continues to do it, in loving in human form.
“Blessed Is She Who Believed”
It is incredible - that Dr. Luke would report that a young woman would conceive without a man in her life; that Elizabeth, Mary, and Joseph would believe what they were told, by angels.
It is incredible -not that God could do it. But that they believed it would be done through them!
The miracle of Christmas you see, is not that God was born of a virgin, but that a virgin believed God was to be born through her. Not that the Holy Spirit caused Mary to conceive, but that Joseph believed it was the Holy Spirit who did it.
As Luther says, “The miracle of Christ as Virgin-born, is a trifle for the mighty God. That God becomes a man is an even greater miracle. But the most amazing of them all is that the maiden finds the angel’s message credible and that the Child he promised would be hers.”
God chose her.
God chooses us, to also be God’s instruments. To be a human vessel through whom something of God’s love and grace becomes human and lives among us.
Blessed indeed are those who believe that there can be a fulfillment of God’s purposes through them, for they shall see God. And know the true meaning of Christmas.
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