Year B
Luke 1:26-38
The Rev. Denise Vaughn
How Can This Be?
Through the years especially during the Christmas season, I have often thought about what it must have been like for a young girl to not only be visited by a holy being out of the blue, but to agree to defy nature and bear a child, and take on a task given her with no idea the significance or where it was headed. That can often be the case in our lives, we take on tasks that we really have no idea what the end result will be but we move forward in faith. Mary’s yes is our example of what faith is to look like and be about. In these twelve verses from the gospel of Luke, Mary stands at the very center and she is described as favored, perplexed, thoughtful, and afraid. She questions, believes, and says yes to what God is asking her to do. This text is all around a miracle of faith for a very human person.
In Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting ‘The Annunciation,’ we see Mary’s fear but what also stands out is the holy messenger whom Luke identifies as Gabriel. The holy being bursts into the earthly realm as a bright column of light into a particular time and place, sent by God to a particular person. Artists and theologians have traditionally depicted Mary as the model Christian believer responding to God in absolute obedience. In her obedience, we see God breaking into human history, our history and it is clear from the holy being’s announcement of the long-awaited birth of the Messiah, we can’t we even imagine the ways of God. As the holy being, Gabriel, says about Mary’s cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy and of course Mary’s, “nothing is impossible with God.”
Gabriel’s words to Mary sum up the birth stories both of John the Baptist and of Jesus. John’s parents Zechariah and Elizabeth are old, beyond bearing years. Their miracle story recalls similar miracle stories from the Hebrew scriptures like Sarah and Abraham’s child born beyond bearing years so that those coming after will know what to anticipate, the impossible becoming possible and hopes being fulfilled. And it is just that impossibility of a young virgin girl bearing a child that Gabriel says has been overcome by the bursting of God into human history. Gabriel not only announces Jesus’ birth, but the whole sweep of Luke’s gospel along with the story of the birth of the church in the Book of Acts.
Which we hear Luke attest to in his gospel in the first chapter verse three, “Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated the whole course of these events in detail, I have decided to write an orderly account for you, so as to give you authentic knowledge about the matters of which you have been informed.” If Luke’s gospel is an “orderly account” it is also an account of the impossible things that God has in fact done. The birth of the Christ child, the healing of the sick, the resurrection of Jesus, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the formation of a community called the church. In these events, Luke tells us of the impossible things accomplished by God: the “events that have been fulfilled among us,” events that cannot be believed and yet must be believed as in the event of the annunciation.
We might ask ourselves today what is it about Mary that makes her the one chosen as an object of God’s grace? We find nothing in the text that provides us even a hint to answer that question. Luke identifies her simply as a young girl engaged to be married. More is said of Joseph than about Mary that he is of the house of David. Luke explains more about Zechariah and Elizabeth, yet not even a single word about why God choose Mary. Which is precisely the point: in story after story, the scriptures tell that God chooses because God chooses. Mary does not earn or deserve the honor of becoming the mother of Jesus any more that any other woman. We are lead to believe she loved God but this story is not one of earned or unearned favor it is a story of the unmerited nature of God’s love, the impossible becoming the possible.
What is Mary’s response to this grace, this love? Mary says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary’s first response is yes even thought she has no idea or can fully understand what God is calling her to do. She recognizes that she has been selected by God and that God’s choosing leaves her no other response but yes. Mary’s words powerfully interpret the birth of Jesus Christ as the triumph of God for God’s people and they give us God’s Christmas wish, that all those who come after Mary will believe that nothing is impossible with God, and invite the Holy Spirit to work through them to bring God’s love to birth.
Because Mary’s response, invites us to think about whom we are….children of God and what we are called to do for God. For, God’s favor is given to each one of us and we are challenged to think about what that means and what our response will be to it. Mary’s assignment from God is an honor and a struggle. Her yes to God, eventually takes her to the cross where she watches her child killed, but by Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, the path has been cleared for our yes’s to God. On this last Sunday in Advent as we continue to prepare for the Christmas birth of our savior, its time for us to look at our relationship with God and each other believing that “nothing is impossible with God” and say yes to God’s favor.
We may ask like Mary “how can this be?” Yet, that question just might be the prayer that leads us to the heart of God, and the desire of God, and the longing of God. It might be the prayer that leads us to our own heart, to our desire, and to our longing. Consider Gabriel’s response to Mary’s question: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you….for nothing is impossible with God.” How can this be?” Leads to “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.” And God’s love in Christ will be born to us in our own time, in our own day, and in our own way. Come, Lord Jesus, Come.