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The Rev. John Sivley
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv4_RCL.html
Audio: /documents/Eucharist__December_24__2023
Video: https://youtu.be/WtWQQ0QYF4Q
Through the season of Advent we prepare ourselves for the last things - final judgment, and for the new life that is to follow. Now on the fourth Sunday, we turn our minds to the next things, specifically to the birth of the Messiah that we are about to celebrate. So from Luke's Gospel we hear the story of the Annunciation.
My favorite picture of this scene was painted in 1333 by Simone Martini. It is called the Annunciation and the Two Saints. It is beautiful and opens up your imagination to what may have been going on.
In this painting, you see the golden angel kneeling down on the ground, his wings still up in the "ready" position, his crown glowing and his face serious. He is holding out an olive branch. One of the angel's hands extends the branch and the other hand points to heaven.
Then you look at the artist's rendition of Mary. She is sitting down and has one of her hands in a book. Her other hand clasps her robe around her as if to protect herself. Her facial expression is one of grave concern and fear. When you stare at her face, you imagine the terror she must have felt. Then you notice that her posture is tense. She is literally on the edge of her seat — about to bolt out the door at the first opportunity.
Do you see how this painting can open up for us theological and biblical exploration of the story? First of all it, it paints Mary as human. Furthermore, it puts her right in the mainstream of biblical reactions to heavenly visitations. Scripture always records fear whenever anyone comes face to face with an angel. Perhaps that is why the words, "Be not afraid" are so important in Scripture. Why should we assume that Mary was somehow different than everyone who has encountered a messenger from God face to face? You can deduce that she was terrified by what the angel says to her in verses 28 and 30. "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you... Do not be afraid Mary." I think that Mary can sometimes be placed so high up on a discipleship pedestal that we can easily forget she was probably terrified.
In today's Gospel, Luke's pattern of disclosure — centering the coming of Jesus in the person of Mary — should be a model of preparing us for the birth of God.
And what does Mary as our Mother in faith teach us?
First she is completely herself. There is nothing pretentious about her. There is nothing extraordinary in her life about which she could boast. There is nothing that would compel God's favor, nothing to make her qualified to receive a breath stopping annunciation over other potential recipients. She came from Nazareth — an unimportant village in Galilee. She had no formal education. She had no high powered job. When it came to organized religion, there was nothing distinct about her. Unlike notably religious men in her culture, it was never said of Mary that she occupied a prominent seat in the synagogue. She was simply Mary from Nazareth.
To the contrary, Mary seems wholly content to be who she was. It was little wonder when she receives the angelic greeting and the news that she is favored by God. Mary doesn't start "jumping up and down and saying I'm number 1." But rather she is perplexed.
To the announcement that she will bear a son named Jesus, who will be called the Most High and who will occupy the throne of David, the fresh faced, gently troubled woman asks: "How can this be, since I'm a virgin?" How honest. How refreshing.
Mary's example says that we don't have to be somebody else for God to enter our lives with great significance. We don't have to strive for favor with God. Or to try to be professionally religious, or to be an ascetic, or even a saint. We do have to need to be open and ourselves, which leads to the next point.
Even though it would mean scandal, having a child out of wedlock (who would later be executed as a criminal) — Mary courageously offers herself as the means of Christ's birth in the world anyway. It is a heroic faith at its best. Saying "yes" to God when everything in your world shouts "no" — daring to enter this "cloud of unknowing" is exemplary trust. Mary models the risk filled nature of a vocation dedicated to expressive faith.
Third Mary's response to Gabriel's announcement — "Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word is totally unforced." Gabriel places no compulsion on her response. Martini's painting helps us to remember that this moment was an invitation from God. The angel is extending the olive branch. Mary can choose whether or not to take it. Mary's response, "Let it be with me according to your word." She does not say "Let it be to me." Her language indicates partnership, consent and receptiveness. Her language indicates her willingness to be a part of this God in Flesh initiative. She is not strong armed into obedience or else. She isn't threatened into saying yes, coerced to be faithful. Only Mary's free acceptance of the call — her willingness to trust at face value what was spoken by the angel — would turn the possibility of the Incarnation into an actuality. And likewise, it is only our trust in God, freely turned to faith—in-action that moves latent faith into realized faith.
Pastor Don Armentrout wrote, "The greatest miracle of Christianity is the reality of Jesus Christ. The greatness of Mary lies not in her being the mother of God nor the Blessed Virgin, but in being the special child of God's grace, the human instrument of God's grace, the human instrument of divine favor and love. This modest woman from an insignificant village was willing to be the channel of God's greatest coming."
Although Luke emphasizes God's initiative, he also records the human response. Mary pledged, "Here I am, servant of the Lord: let it be with me according to your word." Then in Chapter I l , when a well meaning woman pronounces blessings on Jesus' mother, Jesus responds that blessed are those who hear and do God's word. These stories in Luke (who is fairest to women of all the evangelists) portray Mary as the first disciple. Indeed in Luke's second book — Acts 1, she is listed among those as huddled in the upper room.
Luke presents Mary not as a goddess, nor a stiff statue gathering cobwebs in a musty cathedral, nor a plastic figurine molded with a sweet contenance to stay lifeless on a coffee table créche. Luke's Mary is a genuine example of faith acted out in discipleship and response to God's word. Her story reminds us of that the oddest, most inglorious moments are packed with the annunciation of God's presence and God's call to serve according to Bryon Rohrig.
How does Mary, who was the first disciple speak to us in our lives at the end of this Advent season before we celebrate the birth of our Lord? One way would be to meet Mary for the first time again.
If we remove from her story the rigors of a full term pregnancy — insisting that Mary somehow did not have to really endure morning sickness or varicose veins or having her hormones out of whack, that somehow she just sailed to the manger nine months later — then we miss the power of her witness. And if we do this then the Incarnation becomes the Incantation — something ethereal, netherworldly. A heresy.
Today we encounter Mary, who was undeniably favored, but also who paid dearly for that anointing as shem would later watch her son die. She was the first one to suffer for the sake of Christ.
Let us name her the first who, for the sake of Jesus, lived day after day in what Martin Buber has aptly called "holy insecurity — a daily walk of faith in which we do not know even the next step, let alone what the final product will be." But we keep putting one foot after the next anyway. In our daily walks with hopes, dreams, doubts and insecurities, Mary is a model for us by being completely herself, content with herself in her soul, and seeing herself as a servant by saying yes to God.
Frederick Buechner also had this insight on the suffering Mary endured: For all of the sentimentality that their relationship has come in for since, there is no place in the Gospels where Jesus speaks some special loving thing for the woman who gave him birth. You get the idea that he couldn't truly belong to anybody unless he belonged to everybody. They were all his mothers and brothers and sisters and there is no place in the record where he offers her anything more that he offered everybody else.
Therefore, let us see Mary and her faith as the model of what happens in our midst eucharistically every week: Just as the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary to give birth to Jesus, so the Holy Spirit consecrates the bread and the wine to be the Real Presence of Christ for us.
Just as Mary received the anointing by faith with thanksgiving, in like manner also we receive the gifts of God for the people of God.
Just as Mary was the meeting place between God and humanity at a specific point in time, so also is the Eucharist that specific time and place where the Incarnate Word meets the believer.
And so, let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Spirit, as God bearers along with Mary.
