If I were to write a letter to God this morning, it might go something like this. Dear God, due to the pandemic, I’m pretty sure I understand the meaning of Advent this year…much better than I used to. So now that I have this waiting, watching, and wondering thing down, when can things go back to normal? Let me know as soon as possible, okay?
It would be great to know what lies on the other side of pandemic and exactly when it will end, but that is not how waiting in God’s time works, is it?
That’s why, today, when we think we cannot possibly wait any longer, we need to hear the story about how God comes to find Mary. It’s a story about how God knows Mary – through, and through and through – and chooses her to be the mother of Jesus. We are reminded that no matter who we are and where we are and yes, even in the midst of a pandemic, God comes to find you and me too – seeking us, choosing us, inviting us to say “yes” to new life.
You see, unlike so many other important figures in the Bible, Mary is introduced in our text today with little fanfare. She has no grand lineage of ancestors to lay before us. She was simply a young girl, a teenager betrothed to a carpenter, living in a rural village called Nazareth. To the world at that time, you might say that she was ‘a nobody’…a nobody living in an unimportant place. And yet the Spirit of God, in the form of an angel, comes to find her, for God has great news. She is favored and will conceive in her womb and bear a holy child, the Son of God.
Just imagine, for a moment, Mary’s utter surprise – a surprise that quickly turns into distress and agitation. Mary is emotional, and we can surely understand why she cries out, “How can this be?” “How can this be?” Have you ever thought you might be hearing from God, or feel nudged by the Spirit in a certain way, only to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat saying “No, not me!” This message could not be for me! You might say, “I’m not worthy of doing this; I’m not capable of doing this; I’m too broken to do this; It’s simply not possible.”
But God knows your heart and sees things in you that the world may not see, just like God knows Mary’s heart, through and through and through. God sees Mary’s inner feminine strength, abundant faith, and the beautiful song she has on her lips about the coming of God’s kingdom. God knows that Mary can do really hard things to bear love into the world. So can you. And so can I.
It’s funny how I see Mary with new eyes now that I am a mother. Growing up at St. Jude of the Lake Catholic Church in Mahtomedi, I always noticed the statue of Mary on the left side of our sanctuary, and she reminded me that women were important in Jesus’ life and important to God. Pictured in traditional blue and white, she looked elegant, gentle, and meek, and yet I have to admit that what I see in Mary now is her inner strength and her grit -- not a “model female” per se, but a model “disciple of Christ”.[1]
See in opening herself up for this blessing, for this love, for the coming of Christ, Mary would have to do really hard things. I’m astounded by her courage, to say “here am I, let it be with me” with no roadmap, no real answers, no detailed plans on what exactly was to come.
She would face stigma as an unwed pregnant mother, and risk losing Joseph all together. The child that she would so lovingly nurture in her womb would be despised and tortured by the world, so much so that she would have to witness her own son’s death on the cross. The prophet Simeon would warn her that as the mother of Jesus, a sword would pierce her soul. (Luke 2: 34-35). Indeed, it did. But, as Jesus himself would say about Mary, “my mother [is one] who [hears] the word of God and [does] it” (Luke 8:21).
In preparing for this sermon, I found myself thinking about what the hearing and doing of discipleship looks like, in real life. I happened upon a picture of a stained-glass window that I had taken on my trip to Israel almost two years ago, at the Church of the Annunciation. This is the church in Nazareth that, according to Catholic tradition, sits on top of the house where Mary lived and where the angel Gabriel appeared to her.
On the stained-glass window, the Angel leans towards Mary, lovingly, knowingly, with two outstretched arms. What is interesting to me is that Mary leans into the Angel too, her right hand cupped behind her ear, as if she is trying to listen closely to what the Angel is saying. But Mary’s left hand gives her emotions away. See, it is pressed down on her heart. She is overwhelmed with both the radiance of the blessing bestowed upon her and also aware that saying yes to God will come with great risk.
And so it is for us when we answer a call from God. A mix of radiance, of blessing, but also uncertainty and fear.
I invite you, this last week in Advent, to make room for Mary’s story and to pause think about your own stories, those the times in your life when you have heard God calling your name and leading you to new life. How did you recognize God’s call? How difficult was it at the time to say yes? What unexpected blessings met you? What hardships did you face along the way? How did your faith help you to find the strength to do hard things?
This week, we wait for the miracle of Christmas, and yet we know that this Christmas won’t look familiar to any of us.
So may we, ordinary people though we may be, know that we are loved by God through and through and through, and that we too have been chosen. And when the Spirit comes to find us, as she has and as she will, may we lean in and listen closely. For hear this good news: the love of Christ has come into the world, is coming into the world, and waits to be born again and again through you and me.
Being at the precipice of this kind of love made flesh is both wondrous and frightening at times. But like Mary, we can do hard things for love. For nothing will be impossible with God. (Luke 1:37)
Let it be with you and me. Amen.
[1] Theologian Beverly Roberts Gaventa discusses the difference between seeing Mary as ‘a model female’ and seeing Mary as ‘a model disciple’ in her book Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Fortress, 1999), pp. 49-78.