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.
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