Year B

Luke 1:26-38

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Say “Yes” to God

Now, finally, after struggling for weeks to hold back the celebration of Christmas in order to receive the fullest possible benefit from the Advent season, we have lessons which open for us the gates to the Christmas Gospel. Today, Annunciation Sunday, gives us the chance to combine the anticipation of the Advent season with the joy of the Christmas themes. Advent prepares us for the gift of Emmanuel –God with us at Christmas. Yet, even as we enter again into the Christmas Gospel, we remember that we still live in Advent time or the “already not yet” time of God.  But today, on this the Sunday before Christmas, our Advent journey shifts as we hear the Good News of God’s promise, the announcement of the incarnation by the angel Gabriel and God’s first coming. But, we also wait for more. Like David and Paul and Mary, we look forward, even as we rejoice in what is; an announcement to a young virgin girl that will change the world.

Today our attention finally turns to Mary, the mother of Jesus who stands at the center of the gospel. After all those years of waiting for the Messiah one might think that she would not have been surprised at the announcement that the Messiah was coming soon. But it is one thing to believe that something will happen. It is quite another thing to believe that it will happen through you. In these twelve verses today and though out the gospels, Mary is described as favored, perplexed, thoughtful, and afraid. She questions, believes, and submits to what God is asking of her. Even as she cannot imagine that she would have an intimate part in such strange and wonderful things.

When she says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word,” we see the blending together of the action of God and the will of Mary in a moment of harmony. Theologians have traditionally depicted Mary as the model Christian believer. She has the reputation of being in perfect sync with God, responding to God’s command in absolute obedience. Someone has said that events are woven together by opportunity and human response. It is God who makes possible this opportunity. This is the moment Mary and so many have waited for. But it is God’s moment. Only God could make it happen through the Holy Spirit. God has a gift to give to the world, a gift to be shared and God was ready.

But God uses people. And God uses people who are ready. Mary is ready. It is her human response of yes that completes the drama of this moment in the work of God’s revelation in the world. Once again, as in the first three Sundays in Advent, we are drawn into the whirlwind of the meaning of biblical time. God came to a young woman in Nazareth and she responded in openness to the will of God. But here is also the beginning of an event that will touch all of human history. It is both “in” time and “above” time. It is both temporal and eternal. Can we even begin to understand how amazingly incredible this event is?

Prophets, priests, and kings had been looking forward to it for generations. A whole people longed for the coming of “the day of the Lord.” Though they did not realize it, all peoples in all places longed for this moment. And how does it come? Incredibly, through a promise to a very ordinary young girl-in a very ordinary, out-of-the way place. How odd that God should choose this woman, this place, this time. But that is how God works. And it is the very surprise of it all that makes us want to join Paul today in singing “to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen”

Mary, pregnant out of wedlock and facing the wrath of her friends in the community, responds to her situation and gives words to her experience also with a song of praise. She says to Elizabeth her cousin in a few verses after our text today, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” She gives words to the awakening of her soul before God. The awakening that causes anyone who says yes to God, to stretch up their arms to God, who made us, in response to God, who stretches across time and eternity to reach us. The soul magnifies God. The soul stretches out to God and the spirit rejoices as we start again with God.

It is possible to begin again like Mary whose soul was ready to begin a new venture as the mother of Jesus our Savior. By Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, the path is opened for us to say yes to God. God makes it possible for us to begin again and again through Jesus and having made this journey back to God, you would think that we would not want to wander off again. You would think that if we could see that even the “messy side of life” can be an opportunity that God is using to fulfil a promise to us, we could respond like Mary did. We could continue to praise and thank God, even in the face of Adversity.

If we can continue to praise and thank God, even in the difficult times, life will be different. Problems will be different, and we will be able to see the promises of God unfold in our own lives. Our souls will magnify God. Our spirits will rejoice in God our savior. This is Mary’s story whose assignment from God is an honor yoked with struggle. Nonetheless, Mary offers herself as a servant of the Lord. She embraced her identity as the Mother of God because it is the only choice that is true to her calling, it is who she is. Advent is a good moment to think about who we are and our true calling because “With God, nothing is impossible.”

We can say yes and open our arms to God like Mary, Elizabeth, Joseph, David, Paul and so many who allowed their wills to serve the divine will. Their yes, played a key role in the salvation of the world. And so will ours because we all say yes at some point in our faith journey. Yes to faith in baptism, yes to God in receiving the Eucharist, yes to serving our neighbor. God only needs us to say, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord.”  Mary allowed God to work the amazing in her life, so we should invite God to do the same in our lives. By her yes, Mary is rightly recognized as an extraordinary saint who made all the difference. “For nothing is impossible with God” when we say yes! Yes, Lord. Come into our lives and into our world so our souls can magnify and praise you. Come Lord Jesus, Come.