December 24, 2023: Fourth Sunday of Advent
Luke 1: 26-38
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Mary was a model of tremendous faith – a faith that came from her close and intimate relationship with God, and not on any tangible assurances that her life would be OK. When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary God’s plans for her, he did it with no guarantees about her or her son’s future, nor did Mary say, “I’ll do as you ask as long as you meet these certain criteria!” So often in my own life, I’m tempted to say to God, “I’ll follow you as long as you make sure it’s not too painful or taxing.” Honestly, I think if I could, I would offer God a contract saying, “I’ll fulfill my end of the bargain if you fulfill yours” and refuse to cooperate unless God signed on the dotted line.
But unfortunately, God doesn’t offer to us contracts that clearly spell out the terms of our commitments! It seems to me that the limited amount of information the angel Gabriel gave to Mary regarding God’s plans for her is very much how in line with how God usually calls me to a certain path or line of action. In my own life when I have felt called by God to go in a certain direction, I am only given snippets of information, never the big picture. Like when I felt called to go to graduate school – I didn’t really know why, all I knew was that God was asking me to go in a different direction than the ministry with which I had been involved. Or when I felt called to get married – I had no idea (as none of us do!) what God had in store for me down the road – I only knew that I felt impelled to take this certain direction, which meant marrying my husband, at this certain time in my life.
So Mary did not know all the details of how her life would unfold; she was only given the briefest of information. Her ability to say “yes” to God models for us her willingness to embark on a journey that is mostly shrouded in darkness, and that is how most of us move forward too – not knowing what the future holds, only hoping that God will be with us no matter what. In her book Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints, Elizabeth A. Johnson cites Therese of Lisieux’ reasons for loving Mary as “not because the mother of God received exceptional privileges that would remove her from the ordinary condition, ‘ravishings, miracles, ecstasies’ and the like, but because she lived and suffered simply, like us, in the dark night of faith.”
Sometimes we, too, have to wait a long time until we understand completely and wholly the fullness of God’s plans for us. Some of us may never fully understand, in the midst of our all too human lives, exactly what God has in store for us. We stand with Mary our sister, one who has known like us, darkness and doubt, alienation and aloneness, to face the unknown portion of our lives, hoping that God will be with us in the journey. We believe that we, like Mary, proclaim the greatness of the Lord, every time we are able to respond to God’s call to bring to birth new parts of ourselves, every time we say yes to God’s call to be life-givers and peacemakers for our world. Along with Mary, we embrace God’s invitation to be most fully the people that we are called to be, so that we can stand before God with outstretched arms and say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1: 37a).