Over-Shadowed

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Luke 1:26-55

God is my strength.

Mary knows this already. She would have learned this, recited this, sung this from the Psalms in her first century version of Sunday School, growing up in Nazareth of Galilee. God is my refuge and my strength, she would have prayed over and over again. A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear. No matter what, she would have prayed. And Mary would have felt a sense of comforting trust that God was her strength, and your strength, and my strength no matter what! Which is our promise in Advent as we prepare for the coming of Christ.

But when Mary, who is engaged to Joseph—of the house of David—actually comes face to face with the God she has prayed to for strength, when she physically encounters the power of God directed toward her in the first person dwelling in a messenger named Gabriel, when she hears that she has found favor with God and that she will bear a son and that her son will rule an unending kingdom, Mary stutters in the face of the God who is her strength. As most of us undoubtedly would.

“How can this be?” she wants to know. I am not even married yet. What you are saying does not make any sense.

And she is right. And that is the point. The power of God doesn’t make sense. Especially when it is staring you right in the face.

And so the strength of God, through the voice of Gabriel, cuts straight to the chase: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” Gabriel says, “and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And nothing will be impossible with God.” Period.

For Mary, at least as the story is conveyed to us in Luke’s Gospel, this appears to be enough. God says it; she believes it; and that settles it, as the bumper sticker says. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.

2000 years later, Mary’s place in that history has been hotly debated. Is she, herself, worthy of worship? What is going on with her psychologically in this moment of “Annunciation”? Is she really a “meek and mild gentle maiden,” as our opening hymn suggests? Or does she instead speak a word of heartfelt challenge in response to Gabriel’s announcement?

Some theologians want to read Mary as being immediately obedient to God’s word, encouraging those of us who follow in her footsteps on this fourth Sunday in Advent, 2011, to do the same. But others see Mary actively engaging the creative power of God with a strength of her own, insisting that God invites Mary to “co-create” a new world order, as it were, and that this “co-creating with God” is our calling, as well as we prepare for the coming of Christ once more.

I, for example, like to point out that the very name “Mary” just so happens to mean “rebellious.” I think the meaning of her name matters! And it is not beyond the realm of possibility that some measure of rebellion in Mary’s spirit may very well have been encouraged by her first century Jewish community. And no, I’m not talking about the bubble gum popping in church kind of rebellion. I’m talking about the fact that Mary and her people faced the ongoing consequences of the Roman occupation and exploitation of even her little town in Galilee. I’m talking about the yearning for justice and freedom that would very likely have been nurtured in her spirit from the time she was a young child. And this yearning would have been prevalent all around Mary as her people sought the strength of God in resisting the power of Rome.

I’m talking about the kind of yearning, rebellious, revolutionary spirit that would urge Mary to joyfully embrace the power of God gestating within her that will “scatter the proud, bring down the powerful, and lift up the lowly in order to fill the hungry with good things,” which are the flat-out revolutionary words of the Magnificat that Mary sings with Elizabeth once her role in the birth of Christ has been announced. In fact, the power of God gestating within Mary so infuses her with the awesome and righteous strength of the Holy Spirit that she is able to proclaim that the revolution of God’s justice and peace has already occurred—in the past tense—because it has already occurred within her very self!

This is, as far as I can tell, the whole point of the incarnation, for Mary and for us: God’s power is already with us, blessing us, strengthening us, uplifting us, redeeming us, even when we can’t quite make sense of it. God’s power is even within us, scattering whatever in us that is proud or powerful in the ways of domination and opening us up to the pride and power that is the way of God. Whether we are, by nature, “meek and mild gentle maidens” gratefully receiving the gift of God’s grace without question or rebellious radical revolutionaries for justice and peace. Or perhaps a little bit of both.

The true promise of this fourth Sunday of Advent is that Mary allows this power of the God who is already her strength to be more than a helping hand through the journey of her life. When the invitation comes, she allows this power of God to transform every part of her life beyond recognition! Mary welcomes the power of God into her very body in order to bring about the salvation of the world. She says “yes” to this power that makes no sense and never will. She commits to a future she cannot yet see but believes is good news. She takes the time to let God’s presence grow within her those nine long months. And she trusts God to strengthen her, whatever happens next. And that is what the life of faith is about, then and now. Total, utter, life-changing transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And the really good news is that when “the power of the Most High overshadows” Mary, as the angel Gabriel says it will, what is actually going on is that God’s strength is enveloping Mary in a divine seal of protection as every part of her life is transformed by God’s power, throughout her scandalous pregnancy and the tumultuous life of the child she loves so much. What is really happening when “the power of the Most High overshadows” Mary is that God wraps her up in God’s own power, just like we wrap ourselves up in the baby blanket crocheted by our grandmothers or the prayer shawl knitted by our deacons. And the kingdom of heaven that God wants to birth through us is protected and strengthened and nourished and supported.

Now that is something to celebrate, as we open our own hearts and minds and even bodies to the ways Christ is born through us in this new year. Because this “kingdom without end” ushered in at Christ’s birth asks every one of us to labor for justice and peace in our time—just as Mary did in her time—and that is one dangerous mission, to be sure. But the power of God protects we who birth this present reality. The power of God envelops us, casts shade upon us, and yes, even overshadows us as we welcome the Prince of Peace once more.

And for that powerful presence, for that strength of our God that will never fail us—ever!—may we joyfully join our sister Mary in responding, “Here am I, the servant of God; let it be with me according to your word.”

I pray it may be so.

Amen.

Comfort, Texas

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Isaiah 40: 1-11           

Mark 1: 1-3  


“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God,” according to Mark’s Gospel, sounds quite a bit like the words of comfort coming to us from Isaiah in the Old Testament lesson that is also before us this morning. Words that begin with, “Comfort, o comfort my people.”

If we were paying close attention to Isaiah last week, in the first Sunday of Advent, we did not hear these words of comfort. We heard words of a sense that all is not well with the world and that we really do need a savior. And perhaps it left us a little bit on edge, wondering where our hope might come from in this Advent season that is our preparation for Christmas.

Well here is that hope, right here, right now, in this follow-up word from the prophet. Because the good news of our journey through the season of Advent is that Isaiah’s proclamation of judgment is followed immediately by comfort! In fact, for Isaiah the whole point of God calling the people to repentance in the first place is because God wants to forgive and restore and renew. To make whole. And the good news of our ongoing journey through the season of Advent is that the last word on Christmas—the eschaton, as we have been discussing in our adult education class—the last word forever from our steadfastly loving God is always, and finally, grace.

You see the people to whom Isaiah speaks, both this week and last week, have just plain suffered too much. The entire city of Jerusalem has been decimated by the Babylonian empire, the great Temple of Solomon destroyed, and the people have been taken into captivity—into exile—away from everything they know and love, wondering if their God even exists anymore.

In the world of ancient Israel at the time of Isaiah’s preaching, the people believe that something of the literal, physical, essence of the God they worship resides in the temple that is built to honor God. The kabod of God, they call this literal, physical essence of God in Hebrew. Translated into English as the glory of God. So every time you hear the phrase “glory of God” or “glory of the Lord” consider that this is referring to the literal or physical manifestation of God on earth.

We in the Christian tradition understand the glory of God to be seen in the incarnation. It is what we celebrate on Christmas Day. But the people of ancient Israel believed the glory of God resided in the Jerusalem temple. And by the time we get to this lesson from Isaiah the Jerusalem temple has been destroyed. And so the people literally wonder if God exists anymore.

They are ready to receive a word of comfort. And so God—who most emphatically does still exist!—and does not need a temple or a church, or even a preacher, for that matter, in the mighty yet intimate voice that belongs uniquely to our steadfastly loving God, calls forth a divine council in the heavens and invites the prophet Isaiah to listen in. And says, “It is time to comfort my people.” It is time.

A voice from the divine council rallies the troops. “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God,” the voice directs. Roll out a path of safety and security through the danger of the desert. A path that will always lead the people back to their spiritual home. And another voice confirms: somewhere along that path of safety and security and comfort the “glory of God,” the kabod of God, the physical presence of God in our midst will be revealed! And all people will see it together.

And another voice concludes: God, herself, will be leading the flock of God’s people along this path of safety and security through the danger of the desert, like a shepherd carrying the lambs of God close to her heart, gently leading the mother sheep” through this desert highway to land of comfort and healing and wholeness and hope.

This is what our Advent journey is all about, especially on this second Sunday of Advent here at Madison Square. We who gathered here last night in a service to comfort families of the victims of violent crime bore witness to the glory of God revealed right here in our midst in this our spiritual home. The same aisle your elders and deacons will follow to the table of sustenance that is our communion today became for those families the path of safety and security, foretold by Isaiah, through their desert of despair and grief. One lamb of God after another brought forward an angel of hope representing the spirit of the one they had loved so deeply.

They stood at the microphone, which had been moved beside the table, and they spoke the name of the one they had loved. And in speaking that name, they called forth the glory of the God who knows each us by name, just like we know the ones we love by name. And they called forth the glory of the God who also had a name at his birth that is coming so soon. And they called forth the glory of the God who relates to us in all the ways the one they loved had related to them: as mother, father, son or daughter, sister, brother, friend.

And they made their way by ones and twos and entire extended families to the tree that has been so beautifully and lovingly placed in our midst. And they hung their angel on the tree, gracing us with the glory of God through these angels on this second Sunday of Advent. And the God who is our shepherd led them with tender grace along this path of safety and security and wholeness and hope just as God leads each one of us along this path, holding us close to her heart, gently leading the mother sheep and the grandfather sheep and the brother and sister and best friend sheep, as we hold the ones we love close to our hearts, trusting always in the light that does still shine in the darkness. And the darkness cannot ever overcome it.

Comfort, oh comfort my people, God says to the divine council, with the same heart of the mother and the grandfather and the best friend seeking solace. Comfort my people, God says to us, who gather in this sanctuary of hope on this second Sunday of Advent. I know what it is to be one of you, God says to us, in this joyful feast that is our communion today. And I want you to be well!

And so I am calling you, God says, down this path of healing and wholeness and hope through whatever desert would diminish your spirit. I am calling you home to this table of grace. I am feeding you with my very own presence. And I am sending you forth to do the same for all you meet. Because the one comforting path of God’s presence in our lives must always follow two different directions: the first one inward to this table of grace, and the second one outward to a world that is hungry for hope. We are not comforted here, in the end, for ourselves alone, but in order that we might, in turn, comfort God’s people in the world beyond these walls.

This is the promise of our second Sunday of Advent, as we gather at the table of Christ for our resurrection meal. I pray it may be so. Amen.