A Sermon for Advent 4, 2023 from Luke 1:26-55

What a curious experience we are having this year with the fourth Sunday of Advent aligning with Christmas Eve. As far as the world outside these walls of worship is concerned it is fully Christmas Eve but right now, just for the next 40 minutes or so it is still Advent Four. We began our journey of Meeting the Transcendent Light in hope on December 3rd by listening to the prophet calling out to God “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down and make right of this mess we have made.” And then we heard again from Isaiah longing for Peace saying, “Comfort, oh comfort my people…make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” In joy our young people brought the house down on Advent 3 as they presented the nativity story in the annual Christmas pageant. And now it is the fourth Sunday of Advent – the Sunday given to love. We find Mary learning that she is the theotokos – that is – the bearer of God, as she is pregnant with the Christ child.

The angel came to her, she went to her cousin Elizabeth’s home and then she sang the song, the one we know to be the Magnificat. But she still has 9 months to go before the birth. The census and the long trek to Bethlehem are a long ways off. It will still be a long time before the Shepherd’s keeping their flocks by night hear the voices of angels proclaiming a savior has been born. For all we know Joseph hasn’t even come around to himself yet. In this moment it is yet Advent four…theologically speaking Christmas Eve is still a long ways off. 

It’s interesting to me, and I think I comment on this in some fashion or other every year, it’s interesting to me just how differently the two gospel writers present this story. The two I am referring to by the way are Luke and Matthew. John doesn’t mention the nativity, or the birth story – for John it all begins theologically with Word becoming Flesh. Mark skips directly to John the Baptist in the wilderness and the first mention of Jesus is at his baptism when he’s roughly 30 years old. Luke and Matthew are the only writers who give such attention to the birth story and they come about it very differently. 

In Matthew the whole story revolves around Joseph. Mary is suddenly found to be pregnant and Joseph gets it in his mind that he’s going to divorce her quietly because he was a righteous man. It’s never been clear to me if he was going to divorce her because he was righteous or if he was going to do it quietly because he was righteous. That might be another sermon. Either way an angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him that the baby in Mary’s womb was the Holy Spirit’s child and reminded Joseph of the prophet who said “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel which means God with us.” It must have been a convincing dream because after Joseph awoke he decided to merry Mary after all. In Matthew’s version of the story the angel never even spoke to Mary and only came to Joseph in a dream. Luke tells the story very differently. 

We heard it this morning. It was a very detailed story. Very particular. It was the sixth month when the angel came to Mary. It was in her home town of Nazareth in Galilee. And when the angel came to Mary she was troubled. I would say so. If an angel came to me in my backyard and said “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” I would be troubled. It’s like when the Bishop Bard came to visit our church recently. To be clear our Bishop is a wonderful guy and I don’t mean to compare him to an angel but it’s very unusual for him to show up at our church, any church really, unannounced; especially at a time other than worship. It was a Sunday night and unbeknownst to me John Boley invited the bishop to attend a small group gathering. It was set to begin at the same time as youth group so I’m running about the church dressed pretty casually and nearly ran into Bishop as he walked through the front doors and my first response wasn’t “Hi Bishop, welcome!” It was, “Oh gosh, what did I do that you came directly here and couldn’t just call me?” 

That’s probably how I would have responded if I were Mary. 

What’s going on? Why has an angel of God come directly to me? What’s wrong with a simple sign in the clouds, or a message in the stars? This must be pretty significant if an angel of the Lord is going to go to all the trouble of coming out of the glories of heaven and down here on earth just to talk to me.

So, yea I would say Mary was troubled. But beside troubled Mary was also curious. The story tells us that she pondered what kind of greeting this might be. She didn’t run away and hide behind the couch. She pondered. She thought about it. She was curious. I think this tells us an awful lot about Mary, that she had the wherewithal to be curious in a space where most of us may have run away afraid. We see this again on Christmas Eve when the shepherds come to visit and tell her of the angels. The Bible tells us she pondered those things in her heart. Mary was curious. Mary was attentive. The angel said to her “Do not be afraid…” but I am not so sure she was afraid. Maybe she was but when I am fearful I have less capacity to be curious. 

Maybe this is why God found favor with Mary. She had a kind of ability to be present to where she was, to trust God at work even in the most unusual and trying of circumstances. Historically we have revered Mary and raised her has the emblem of holiness because she was the mother of Jesus, as in, in her identity and her righteousness were found solely in her motherhood. And to be the mother of Jesus is certainly something to be revered. I don’t know that anyone will argue that being the mother of Jesus carries with it a particular righteousness. I used the word theotokos at the beginning of this reflection. This is the greek theological word for “bearer of God.” Consider this a moment. Consider the weight of this for a moment. When we look at the gospel of John we read that in the beginning there was the Word and the Word became flesh and the Word was Jesus. Theologically speaking to bear Jesus in the womb meant to bear God in the womb. Mary was met by the Holy Spirit, was filled with the life form of God – Emmanuel – and birthed God into the world. There is something incredibly righteous about this. 

And, pregnancy is not all that made Mary holy. I am indebted to feminist theological readings of the text who remind us that grounding Mary’s belovedness merely in terms of motherhood is not necessarily Good News. Even more, the encounter between Mary and the angel and the Holy Spirit can be read as a massive power imbalance. Does an adolescent girl really have any agency when the creator of the entire universe would like something to happen? The Theologian, Rev. Dr. Rachel Mann points to Mary’s curiosity along with her assertiveness to consent and to claim agency in her encounter with the Holy Spirit. The theologian writes, 

            There is an extraordinary quiet and deeply prophetic determination when Mary says “Let it be with me according to your word.” She joins a long line of those who take their place    in God’s work of justice and love. Mary speaks and claims her place. She will not simply be done to. She transforms God’s invitation into service and action.            

Mary would not be done to. Whether or not she had a choice in the matter she asserted a choice and I would argue that Mary’s choice blew open the possibilities of agency and faithfulness for every God seeker and God follower to follow. My own theology professor at Garrett liked to say that Mary’s “yes” to God was the essential moment of the annunciation; that God could only act after Mary said “yes”, that Mary’s “yes” was the delivery of Emmanuel for the world. She laid out a paradigm for discipleship – that an essential ingredient to Christ’s repeated entries into the world are our “yes’s.” In other words, an essential element to relationship and partnership with God is freedom – freedom to say “yes” or to say “no”. 

Years ago I learned a phrase – a theological statement really – that left such a profound impression on me that it has become almost a part of me. It is the statement that God is love, and all are born in love, and by love, and for love. I taught a Bible study for a statewide gathering of Wesley Foundation Students 10 or 12 years ago and used this phrase and some of those students still use the phrase as if it’s their own today in their own ministries. I taught the statement to high school camp counselors about the same time and 12 years later they use it like it’s their own. I didn’t write it, I learned it from the South African minister, Alan Story. He may have written it. I don’t know. He does not take credit for it. But there is another part to the phrase that we do not always use and that is – we are given the freedom to love, or not to love. 

All together the statement goes – God is love, and all are born in love, and by love, and for love and yet, we are given the freedom to love, or not to love. Did Mary have freedom when the angel came and announced that the holy spirit would overshadow her? I do not know. What I do know is that Mary staked a claim in freedom. From her love for God she refused to be a tool of God’s and asserted holy partnership. It was from her own love of God that she asserted the freedom of agency and consent. And while Mary’s status as theotokos is reason to call her blessed, she was righteous for the way she taught the world to be bearers of Christ, partners with God. From Mary we learn that freedom is the air love breathes. Let me say that again – freedom is the air love breathes. I do not often preach a sermon focused so intently on Mary and this year I am grateful to her such as I have never been before. Her assertion of agency has opened even wider for me a bedrock of my faith – that we are born in love and by love and for love and yet we have the freedom to love or not to love. Mary chose to love. Mary chose to bear love into the world. And in choosing to bear love we learn something else about our own Christian lives. 

In Mary’s story we see how God came to Mary, how God filled Mary, and how God moved through Mary, that moving through Mary she delivered the news of Christ to the world. Even before the birth Mary proclaimed the good news. Just the same God comes to us, and God fills us, and God moves through us, that moving through us we deliver the good news of Christ to the world. 

From Mary’s mouth there was gratitude: My soul magnifies the Lord. From Mary’s mouth there was prophetic witness to the work of God. God whose strength has scattered the proud, has brought down the powerful, has lifted up the lowly, has filled the hungry, and sent the rich away empty, who has been a faithful keeper of promises made. 

These are not words of a young woman forced into servitude. 

This is the prophetic witness of one liberated by the power and love and the grace of God claiming the agency to speak with boldness of God’s transcendent light beaming from the child in her womb and turning the world’s social order on it’s head while showering blessings on the lowest of humanity. In a time and a place where women, especially women of Mary’s status were expected to be silent, and forbidden to bear witness, the love of God birthed a new freedom within Mary. God came to Mary, filled Mary, and moved through Mary.

This Advent God is coming. 

To us. 

And God will fill us. 

And God will move through us. 

What a perplexing thing that the God who flung the stars in the sky is coming to us? It is still morning. Night is not yet here. May we be found curious with Mary for just a few more hours