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Luke 1: 26–38
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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
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As you probably know, the word ‘advent’ means
“coming.” And, generally speaking, we use this term to refer
to the coming of the Lord among us as a baby in Bethlehem. But over the
past several weeks we have discovered it alludes to more than the arrival
of Jesus Christ in our midst; for the story is larger than that.
Two weeks ago, for example, that word referred to the homecoming of
the exiles in Babylon – not just coming back to their hometown of
Jerusalem, but coming home in their hearts to God, as all of us have to
do on a regular basis.
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Then in last week’s readings, the people who came to John where
he was preaching and baptizing in the wilderness were priests and
Levites, coming to trap him in his own words – and so discredit
him to the authorities, waiting for their report in Jerusalem. And this
too, is part of the Lord’s coming, for always there are cynics and
doubters, ready to question every miracle. Even so, the Lord comes,
full of compassion, full of forgiveness – just waiting for the
scoffers and doubters to come to faith.
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Finally, though, this morning, the actual coming of the Lord is at hand.
In a little town in northern Galilee, a backwater town called Nazareth,
the angel Gabriel comes from God with a message for a young girl named
Mary. We don’t know much about this young girl, but in those days
Jewish girls could be engaged to be married at the age of ten or eleven
and could be married by age twelve or thirteen. So most likely, Mary was
a very young teen. Even so, she seems remarkably composed as she listens
carefully to the angel’s message.
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He greets her in words familiar to anyone who has had the slightest
brush with the Catholic Church. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the
Lord is with you,” he says. But as I read those words this week,
familiar as they are, I found myself wondering if they could be
translated any other way. And indeed, they can. Alternatively, they
might mean, ‘Greetings to the one graced by God’ or ‘to
the one endowed with God’s favor’ or even ‘to the one
dearly loved by God.’ However you translate those words, clearly
it is God who has acted on Mary, filling her with grace, making her
graceful or gracious or beautiful in the Lord’s sight. In other
words, the Lord himself has prepared her for this moment.
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And then the angel Gabriel adds, “The Lord is with you.”
Now, you and I, hearing these words, don’t think twice about them.
We’ve heard them all our lives. In fact, we take it for granted
that God is with us. But Mary, hearing these words, sits up and
takes notice, deeply disturbed — for the words “God is with
us” or “God is with you” are not words Mary had heard
every day of her life. In her day, no one had, for these words translate
the name Emmanuel, the name the prophet Isaiah foretold would be
a sign of the coming Messiah. So now, Luke says, Mary is thoroughly
shaken. She’s beginning to get it. She is beginning to connect
the dots and realize that Gabriel might be talking about the coming of
Messiah.
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The angel tries to reassure her. “Do not be afraid, Mary. You have
found favor with God.” And then he confirms her suspicions,
saying, “For you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a
son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be
called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give to him
the throne of his father David; and he shall reign over the house of
Jacob forever; and of his Kingdom there shall be no end.”
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It’s at this point that Mary asks her one question: “But
how? I’ve never slept with a man.” You see, it’s
not God she is questioning. It’s her part in God’s plan. So
the angel explains, “The Holy Spirit of God will come upon you,
the power of the Highest hover over you; Therefore, the child you
bring to birth will be called Holy, Son of God.”
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And then, Gabriel offers Mary a detail of the larger plan that helps her
understand that she won’t be alone in this enterprise. He reveals
to her that her kinswoman Elisabeth has also conceived a child, even
though she is past the age of childbearing. And somehow, letting Mary in
on that family secret is all it takes to reassure the young girl, to
calm her concerns. Mary doesn’t yet understand all the details,
but she is willing now to go along with God’s plan.
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“Here am I,” she says. “the handmaid of the Lord.”
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This story, too, is part of the Advent story, the story of God coming to
his people. This part of the story is about the angel Gabriel, sent by
God and coming to Mary to enlist her participation. And it’s about
Mary, coming to understand God’s plan and agree to her part in it.
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But the story is also, I think, about us, coming to understand that we
are just like Mary – with nothing to recommend us but our humility,
nothing to contribute but whatever God puts into us, whatever he is
willing to do through us and for us. It’s all about the grace of
God – which can be our story if we will allow it to be.
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For the truth of the matter is that we are just like Mary. We are
ordinary . . . we are
common . . . we are not
well–informed. We might come from places that others don’t
respect. All the same, God loves us and comes to us in holy moments most
of us hardly dare to share – because we can’t explain them
and we hardly know how to defend them against the skepticism of people
who don’t believe. But those moments have become our richest
treasure and our dearest hope. They have become the ground of our faith
in the sacredness and joy of life. They have become the basis of our
hope that He comes to us still. God with us. Even us. Praise his holy Name.
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Amen
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