#120
11/26/01
Luke 1:26-38
Bibliography:
I want you to pause and think with me for just a moment. Here in the last few weeks of 2001, lets look back over this past year, and reflect.
We began with a down turn in our economy. In January, February, and March, households in Grace paid taxes on money they no longer had from their investments. Some of our retired folks watched their retirement funds shrink to half of what they had been. For some, monthly expenses meant touching the principal, and not just living on the interest.
Then came the layoffs. Many families within our family were laid off from Acxiom and Alltell - not once, but twice these companies laid off employees. By midsummer, we found ourselves uncertain and somewhat apprehensive of the economic future.
But that wasn’t all of the big blows for this year. Of course the biggest that comes to our mind is September 11 and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Those of us who already felt like we were trying to juggle things while standing on a balance board - lost our balance. The world toppled over. Many of us have never experienced anything like that before. We don’t want to ever again. And still, we await the uncertainty of the future.
However, I have felt personally those larger, more global events have only served to weaken me for the heavier blows more closer to home this year.
It seems like time and time again, the security of my world has been shaken, the lack of solidity to it brought home, as we have lost some members of our church family this year. Some we have lost at very young ages, and still others I know and you may know as well are extremely ill.
We have lost Lisa Pearcy, our Boy Scout Leader at the age of 44. The tragedy of her death is compounded by the fact that the boys were with her on a camping trip at the time. They experienced personally her collapse.
We have lost Steve Rumfelt at the age of 55. It was unexpected and sudden. It has been tragic, and I have felt his death rip the heart out of this church.
We have lost Wanda Tucker. Though she was not as young as Lisa or Steve, her death was still a sad and slow one. She died of Lou Gerhig’s disease, in spite of how much we wished it wasn’t so.
And we lost Jim Barte’ to cancer.
Many of us have lost loved ones this year - there have been mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles - people who are near and dear to our hearts in a way that no other person is.
Additionally, many have had the shock and blow of unexpected serious illness in our family. We have mentioned many over the last several weeks - Jean Bosch, Chere’ Beavers, Mary Milam, and Amy Slack, just to name a few. Their conditions are not without hope, but they are scary. Their lives and the lives of their families have been changed by this experience. In some of their stories I too have felt their fear and their shock. It has been and is a difficult year for many of us.
This Christmas will be a different kind of Christmas for these families. In some of these homes I have just mentioned, someone won’t be there, and Christmas won’t be the same. And in some of the others, physical abilities will be gone. Questions and concerns will be in their place. What will next Christmas be like? What will be missing then? Who won’t be here next year?
And when money tight, when you don’t have a job, it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all.
This Christmas will be a different kind of Christmas for all of us, for whether or not we have experienced a personal loss in our families, we share in the loss of our church family, and we share in the loss in our country.
Many of us are coping with serious illness, either ourselves or in those we love and we are worried.
Many of us are struggling financially and things have only gotten worse. Christmas coming only makes things more difficult.
Many of us deal with other issues and struggles - we need help. Our relationships are in jeopardy, our sanity is in jeopardy, our serenity is in jeopardy.
For some, it doesn’t feel like Christmas is coming, and for some, we’d just as soon Christmas went away.
This year will not be the same. This year places will be empty, traditions will be different, celebration will be diminished,
joyfulness will be a little quieter,
the warm glow a little less bright.
For many - for all - this will be a different kind of Christmas.
I guess you could say it was a different kind of Christmas for Mary and Joseph, as well. If fact, it was different kind of Christmas for the world; in fact, it was the very first Christmas of all.
There are many similarities between our world and the world of Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph would find themselves in some surprisingly similar circumstances.
Their country was under military occupation by the Roman Empire. There were lots of uncertainty and concern in their friends, family, and countrymen, both politically and economically. The Hebrews had no control over their future. They could feel no certainty of what was to come. There was no stability they could rely on.
And though none is mentioned, I’m sure tragedy, illness, death, and financial worries must have been a part of their daily and personal lives as well.
I think they must have felt very much the same way many of us feel today.
There are lots of similarities in the days leading up to their Christmas and ours.
Our story tonight is the story of a great miracle in the face of difficult times. We read tonight of a story that could almost have begun with “Once upon a time...”
We read of the angel Gabriel who made a visit to a town called Nazareth in the countryside of Galilee. There he visited a girl - a young teenage girl - named Mary who was engaged to be married to a carpenter named Joseph. He came to bring her a message.
Gabriel greeted this young girl Mary, as one who was favored by God.
Mary was greatly troubled by this greeting from the angel. After all, being chosen by God brought none of today’s ideals or goals that consume our daily life. We assume those whom God favors will enjoy the good life: social standing, wealth, good health.
Such would not be the case for Mary. She would have a child out of wedlock who would later be executed as a criminal. There was no wealth, no recognition, no royal title for Mary, who would be the mother of the man who would be King, and whose Kingdom, as Gabriel had said, would never end.
“Do not be afraid.” Gabriel says to Mary, for she will give birth to a son. His name will be Jesus. He will be the Son of the Most High, the Son of the God. Through him the entire world will be saved. For God in God’s infinite wisdom has a plan. God knew of our need for a savior. God knew of our need for Christmas. God knew we needed God’s presence among us, able to relate to us on one hand, able to save us on the other.
God knew there were times then and times now when the uncertainty and the severity of the events would overwhelm us. God knew kingdoms and powers would rise to power, that leaders of these human kingdoms would grow strong, overwhelm and over power others
- that these kingdoms would gather followers of falsehoods, and that these same kingdoms would oppress and hurt others, then after the damage they have done, these kingdoms would crumble and fall away.
God knew we needed Jesus, all human, all God - a King to reign over God’s people forever, for his kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, one built out of love for us all.
The central figure in our story is not Mary and is not the angel Gabriel. The central figure in our story is the gracious and loving God who gave us his Son, Jesus, whose birth is the promise of God’s redeeming love - Emmanuel - “God With Us.” And Mary was favored, chosen by God, to play a role in this redemption process.
Mary was troubled by these words, because acceptability, prosperity, and comfort have never been the essence of God’s blessing.
God’s blessing is not going to take away our pain. God’s blessing is not going to bring our loved one’s back; its not going to restore our lost health; its not going to erase the events of September 11; its not going to make our life easy, comfortable, prosperous.
Perhaps Mary recognized that God’s blessing can be bittersweet. There is no substitute, but being favored by God is often a difficult gift to receive, for it calls for great courage, great strength, great energy, and great faith. We will often be asked to face what we would rather not face. We will often be asked to grow through events and in areas we’d rather not grow. However, unbelievable as it may be, overwhelming as it may seem, incomprehensible as it is, Gabriel tells us - “Nothing will be impossible with God.”
An old and barren woman - not Mary but her relative, Elizabeth - can bear a child. A virgin, Mary, can conceive. The Lord can enter into human history as a child. From a tomb can come resurrection and life, and the Holy Spirit can empower the world, form a church where there is none, and reach out to all the world.
Now we’ve heard this Christmas story before. In fact we’ve heard it so many times, its novelty has long since faded away, and we loose sight of the awesomeness of this event - that God would enter human life with all its violence and corruption, to bring us hope, to rescue us from our sinfulness, to send us Jesus our deliverer.
If there has ever been a Christmas when we need to remember this - God loves us, God gave his Son for us, Jesus came to be born among us - if ever there was a Christmas we need to remember that nothing will be impossible with God, its this Christmas.
When Gabriel finished delivering the message he had come to give Mary, after he spoke of this miracle that was to happen, and did his best to explain how this miracle could happen - as if you could ever explain a miracle...
after Mary I’m sure pondered the ramifications of this Miracle - I bet she thought a head a little, thinking how the news she had just been given was going to be received by her friends and family...
after Mary heard Gabriel’s news, do you know what she said?
“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”
You see, I think Mary knew what being favored by God meant and was going to mean. Like most people, I imagine she realized being chosen by God often meant not only did life’s normal burdens not go away or get better, but often there were greater challenges ahead. I guess you could say that blessings in some ways aren’t blessings at all.
But Mary knew that the blessing comes within the relationship. Mary knew that nothing meant anything outside the fellowship with God. She could have said no. She could have rejected God’s invitation. It could have passed to some other girl. But it didn’t.
Because maybe, just maybe, Mary knew that what makes Christmas Christmas is God’s desire to enter into the lives of ordinary people, and the willingness and openness of ordinary people to let God in.
Of course I’m sure she understood this in her own Hebrew way.
I wonder, as we celebrate this Christmas that will be a different kind of Christmas for us all...I wonder can we grasp a hold of how different that first Christmas was.
I wonder can we understand, just a little, the magnitude of the impact Gabriel’s message had on Mary’s future, and the magnitude of the impact it has on ours today.
I wonder can we understand, just a little, what it took for Mary to commit to the path she chose. I wonder can we comprehend the enormity of the commitment she made. I wonder can we follow her lead, even if in a small way.
I wonder. I hope we can. In light of the events of this year and the years ahead, I hope we can.
In Jesus name, Amen
