Audio Version HERE.
Luke 1:26-37
Goooooood morning, Covenant on the Corner … and welcome to the season called Advent … a series of four Sundays, laying a foundation, preparing the way … getting us ready, to celebrate the birth of the Messiah …
Year after year …
Why do we do this?
Well … why Thanksgiving every year … why not every five years, or ten years …
How about birthdays … well, maybe every five or ten years would be a good thing …
But lunch with a friend …
Listening to Handel’s Messiah …
Telling our best jokes … all over again …
Going to the beach on a Sunday afternoon …
Our favorite restaurant …
Good things bear repeating …
And some things, big things, important things, deserve a special place in our lives … because we never totally understand … never totally discover all the meaning … there’s always something new, something fresh and surprising about great things …
Like Psalm 23 … or the LORD's Prayer …
Or Mary’s Magnificat … and the announcement of good news to the shepherds in the hills …
So … welcome to Advent … again … and like never before …
This year, four questions …
Mary asks, How can this be? When the angel tells her she’s going to conceive …
For Joseph learning of Mary’s pregnancy, What now?
From the Inn Keeper: Is there room?
From the Shepherds: Are we included?
Advent is an epic tale … a big story … big ideas … a big-screen story …
Like “Gone with the Wind,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “LORD of the Rings,” “Australia” …
Colorful characters …
Great dialogue …
Drama and romance …
A journey for the soul …
Welcome to Advent … 2008 … a journey for the soul!
Today, Mary … and her question, How can this be?
If you grew up a Roman Catholic, Mary was very much the center … you grew up with the Rosary:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the LORD is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of they womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
For our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers, images of Mary are found everywhere, Mary Queen of heaven, wearing a crown and holding a scepter … Mary and her child … and one of the most famous of all images, the Pieta – Mary holding the crucified body of her son …
The 10th Century formalized the idea of Mary’s immaculate conception – that’s conception … not reception, as in football … Mary’s immaculate conception.
Early church dogma taught that sin was physically transmitted in the act of conception … this idea of sin physically transmitted goes back to St. Augustine in the 4th Century: sin - physically transmitted in the act of conception … which is why the Roman Church requires celibacy for priests and nuns – people in the religious profession should not pass sin on …
So Mary had to be sinless … so some theologians crafted the idea of her immaculate conception …
No sin in her flesh …
So that her son Jesus, could be born without sin, as well.
But it was only in 1854 that the idea was officially recognized as dogma, official teaching … required now of every Catholic …
But there’s even more …
In 1950, Pope Pius the XII formalized the dogma of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven … before death could undo her, Mary was taken up into heaven, body and soul intact …
For many Roman Catholics, Mary is the center of their faith.
In Central and South America and Eastern Europe …
Mary is venerated …
Festivals and feasts …
Trinkets and treasures …
Plastic beads to diamonds and gold …
Prayers are said to her …
Pleas are made in her name …
Her solace is sought …
Visions of her are common in these parts of the world …
Her face strangely appears on walls and in clouds …
Her statues weep …
Her eyes move …
Mary, the Mother of God …
Now, if you grew up a Protestant, as I did,
You knew very little about Mary …
And for many a Protestant, we didn’t even celebrate Advent … we jumped right into Christmas, and that was that … and all we knew was that Christmas came after Thanksgiving … and Easter was way back there somewhere.
Ever since Vatican 2 in 1962 – convened by Pope John XXIII Protestants and Catholics have been talking and sharing …
Protestants began to adopt the liturgical year … seasons and festivals … including Lent and Advent, and lectionary preaching …
Protestants began to think and talk about Mary …
This morning, we’ll spend some time with Mary … and her question to Gabriel, How can this be?
Let’s open our Bibles and read some of her story … …
In order to understand this epic tale, we have to step back to Genesis 2, when God paid Adam and Eve a visit …
Expecting to find Adam and Eve enjoying the Garden, God finds them hiding in the bushes, afraid to come out … afraid of God.
They heard the sound of God walking in the Garden, they said, and they were afraid.
At every turn, when God shows, folks are disconcerted … even the most faithful don’t know what to do …
I think we’re all afraid of God … yes, really … it’s now in our genes, our spiritual makeup …
That’s why human beings invent religion … a way of taming the divine … putting in a firewall between us and God … something manageable, something we can tinker with – we can call it god, but it isn’t God … not even close!
We’re still in the bushes …
But God happens to love this world, and God loves you and me.
So what’s God to do?
I’m a dog-lover …
I get along with dogs and dogs get along with me …
But a friend’s dog was a different story …
My friend got Freddie from a pound …
And though Freddie loved my friend, he was afraid of me … one sniff, and that was that … a growl and a retreat to another room …
No matter what I did, it never worked … Freddie was always afraid of me …
Now, what might have happened if I could have become a dog … and with a little doggy language, say to Freddie, There’s no need to be afraid … remember that guy who used to frightened you? Well, that’s me, but I’m now just like you … I’m a dog, too … and you see, there’s no need to be afraid of me.
As goofy as this sounds, that’s the story of the incarnation … God becomes one of us … says to us in human tongue: remember that God you were always frightened of? Well, that’s me. Here I am. My name is Jesus. I eat and sleep; I laugh and weep. I live and I die. You see, there’s no need to be afraid of me.
God becomes one of us!
And how did this happen?
The angel Gabriel pays Mary a visit …
You’re going to be the mother of Israel’s Messiah …
You’re going to conceive a son, and he shall save the people.
Mary asks her question: How can this be?
How can this be, since I’ve not yet known Joseph?
I’ve not been with a man …
How can this be?
Mary’s young, but she knows how things happen …
Gabriel has no answer …
But Gabriel offers assures …
Whatever is going to happen is God’s work …
The Holy Spirit will come upon you Mary …
Something profound … something wonderful … a mystery, a joy, a delight … not of human doing, but of God’s mighty work.
At the heart of the story: Mary’s response
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
The cry of surrender …
I give myself to you in faith and obedience …
Thy will be done!
What do we know about Mary?
She’s smart …
When she visits her cousin Elizabeth, Mary sings a song of praise … we call it the Magnificat – from the LORD for magnify … my soul magnifies the LORD, sings Mary.
Mary’s Magnificat is an eloquent recital of God’s promises …
God is no pansy …
But incredibly patient …
And there is coming a time when wrongs will be righted, the oppressed set free … the proud brought down, and the lowly lifted up …
Mary knew her Bible.
What we call the Old Testament …
Jewish children at her age had memorized huge portions of the Bible … and Mary would have been around the age of 13 …
Children were well-taught by the rabbis and scribes …
They knew how to read Torah …
They heard it every Sabbath in the synagogue …
It was rehearsed in their prayer life …
And every Passover feast …
And other festivals throughout the year …
It was on their parents’ lips all the time …
First Century Palestine was Scripture-soaked …
Everyone knew their Bible …
Mary knew her Bible …
She knew it well enough to sing a song filled with it …
What do we know about Mary?
She wasn’t afraid … she was daring and willing …
She asked her questions …
Time and again, we’re told: she tucked things away, she pondered them in her heart …
Mary was a thinker …
And when others might have been afraid, she was just perplexed … and wondered, What’s up with this?
She was comfortable with God.
The angel assures her all the more: Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God
Greetings favored one! The LORD is with you.
What do we know about Mary?
She’s savvy … she’s spiritual … she’s a thinker …
At the heart of her heart …
Trust and surrender …
Frightened people will not surrender to God …
Only confident people can take their life into their own hands and deliver it unto God … freely and confidently:
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
That’s why God works so hard to remove fear from our lives …
Can we learn from Mary?
She’s a clear and abiding example for all of us …
To walk humbly with God, writes Micah …
A child holding hands with a parent …
Two friends out for a hike in the mountains …
Lovers on the Santa Monica Pier …
Over the years of ministry, I’ve pondered the nature of surrender …
A friend said to me one day, and he was a Christian, The word surrender bothers me …
It became clear in further conversation: My friend was afraid of losing control … it was important for him to maintain boundaries, remain in charge …
My friend grew up in the church …
Knew the stories … lived a virtuous life …
But didn’t feel safe with God.
It’s the Adam-and-Eve-in-the-bushes syndrome …
But here’s where Mary is instructive for all of us …
She’s young as age goes …
But wise in the ways of God …
What was her strength?
We have a clue in her Magnificat, her song of praise …
She knew her Bible …
She knew it in the depths of her heart …
Not just a verse here and there, not just slogans and sayings, but the story, the whole story, and nothing but the story: the great themes and exulted ideals … the power and the glory … the goodness of God.
Mary was no stranger to the things of God.
When she asks, How can this be?
Gabriel says, This is all I know Mary; it’ll be God!
Gabriel’s simple answer is right …
We don’t have the details …
It’s always a mystery …
Paul the Apostle says it well: we see through a glass darkly.
The simple answer from Gabriel: It’ll be God’s work Mary – that’s how it’s going to happen.
That simple answer was good enough for Mary.
Because she was already comfortable with God.
If Mary were here today, she’d say to us: If you want to get anywhere with God, if you want to get beyond square one, surrender you life!
You see, all of us are a Mary in waiting …
We have a heart …
Call it a womb …
A place where God wants to take up residence …
A place where the Messiah is conceived …
You see, Gabriel still comes to us …
To tell us that God wants to get inside of us …
God wants more than religion …
God wants a relationship …
Up close and personal …
To be conceived within us …
So that God can be born into the world through us.
For this Season of Advent: Mary’s surrender:
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
Amen and Amen!
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