Second Sunday in Advent,
Luke 1:26-45
Comparison shopping is a fairly standard technique for shoppers these days. The internet has made it really easy to do. Many websites have a standard format for describing the various features of a product, and you can select a number of different brands of a product – say for example, a printer, or an automobile, or anything similar – and you can see on your screen a line by line comparison and contrast of all the different brands.
This feature of internet shopping came to mind as I was thinking about the gospel lesson for today. Luke’s gospel is not trying to let us do comparison shopping, like those internet sites. But, the organization of the opening chapters of his gospel remind me of the way those shopping sites are sometimes organized – the way two things are laid side by side, so that we can most easily note the comparisons and contrasts, what is the same in both of them, and what is different.
The first chapter of Luke’s gospel first takes up the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist, and after that the announcement of the birth of Jesus. After that, Luke recounts to us events surrounding the birth of John the Baptist, and then the events surrounding the birth of Jesus.
In last week’s gospel lesson, we read about the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist, and this week we have just heard about the announcement of the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary. And, since both accounts are reasonably fresh in our minds, I want to do what I think Luke wanted us to do – to view both accounts together and to note what is the same about both of them, and what is different.
Let’s first note what is the same in both accounts. Several obvious similarities jump out at us.
Both episodes record the announcement of a the birth of a son. In both announcements, it is not only a son whose birth is announced, but we’re also told the name these sons are to bear – John, and Jesus. With today’s technology, neither of these are particularly remarkable, because parents can routinely discover the sex of their children in the womb and then spend several months figuring out what to call them. Back then, of course, these birth announcements weren’t taking place in an obstetrician’s office as he used a sonogram. Matters were a tad more unusual. For, you see, neither of these births were going to proceed by ordinary pregnancies. In fact, these pregnancies were so unusual, that we’re correct in naming them miracles.
In keeping with the miraculous nature of the pregnancies themselves, we have the appearance of an angel, and a most high and lofty angel at that. Gabriel is the angel who appeared to the Prophet Daniel and helped him to understand the visions of the future he was seeing. Jewish legend has Gabriel destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, and the hosts of Sennacharib. Jews thought that it was Gabriel who buried Moses. In the Christian tradition, it was Gabriel who appeared to Joseph, Mary’s husband. And, early Christians related that it was Gabriel who strengthened the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane.
When we read this, we think that the involvement of an angel is one of the unusual features, but this is not true. The Scripture teaches us what we read in verse 4 of the 104th Psalm: God makes the winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. It is this verse from the Psalms that the author of Hebrews quotes when he writes, Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
No, the unusual thing here is that we actually see the angel Gabriel as he performs the service, for in their labors for believers, angels are mostly invisible and their services for our benefit are not the kinds of things we ordinarily ever see.
Two other things are similar between the announcements of the birth of John and the birth of Jesus. Both announcements are fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy. Last week we saw how Gabriel made a paraphrasing allusion to the last verse of the Old Testament – that statement about the coming prophet who would turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children. Gabriel was saying that this prophecy would be fulfilled in John the Baptist. When speaking with Mary, Gabriel also points to Old Testament prophecies of the coming Davidic Messiah. Luke doesn’t tell us whether or not Gabriel mentioned Isaiah 7:14, but Matthew certainly did in his gospel “"Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,"[4] which is translated, "God with us."
So, both announcements are made by an angel, the angel says both births are fulfillments of prophecies centuries old. A final similarity is worth noting as far as the significance of all this for us: both women and both locals are pretty far off the beaten path. We are told in this chapter that Elizabeth and Zacharias lived in the hill county. Today that might be a sign of success and prosperity – to live out in the suburbs, or the countryside. In those days, it was more like living in Bristol or Palmer here in Ellis County. Not exactly a happening kind of place! Mary was in Nazareth, and it was so far in the sticks that there was even a proverb about it – Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
We could add several more similarities, but let’s look next at what’s different in these accounts.
Two things loom very large as far as differences in these episodes. First of all, there is difference in ages and stations of the prospective mothers.
Elizabeth is a very old woman; Mary is a teenager, probably about the age of 14 years old. Elizabeth has been married for a very, very long time; and she is barren. Mary is not even married; she is what we would call engaged. And, she is a virgin.
I think the significance of these differences is best explained in terms of the Old Testament prophecies that each of these births was to fulfill. When we hear that the aged Elizabeth is going to conceive, what comes to mind immediately is the similar situation of Israel’s patriarchs, whose wives also were barren. Yet, those barren women – and here one especially thinks of Abraham’s wife Sarah – these barren women conceived by the power and grace of God. The point of Elizabeth’s conceiving in her old age is simply this: God is doing in her life what he has already done in the lives of the patriarchs of Israel. And, it’s not just that God makes barren women fruitful. No, when God has done so, he has done so as a way to mark out that the children of these women are God’s chosen servants to advance the fulfillment of his promises of redemption.
In Mary’s case, her very young age is significant too, in terms of the Old Testament prophecies her pregnancy fulfills. In Mary, God is not doing what he’s already been known to do; instead he is doing an utterly new and different thing, yet it was a thing which the Prophet Isaiah had foretold. A virgin would be with child.
Now, it might have been an old virgin, I suppose. But, by selecting this very young woman, God greatly enhanced this feature of her pregnancy – that it was not only her first, but that it occurred at an age when she is barely able – in the normal scheme of things – to conceive at all.
The second thing that is different in these two accounts is the way that they were received. And this difference is highlighted by way Luke reports the conversations Gabriel had with Zacharias and Mary. He salutes them both, they are both afraid. Gabriel tells each of them “Fear not!” and continues with the announcement of the miraculous birth. So far, both conversations proceed pretty much according to the same pattern.
There is even a similarity in this: both Zacharias and Mary assert a detail that makes Gabriel’s announcement appear to be impossible. Zacharias says “my wife and I are well advanced in years.” Mary says, “I have not known a man.”
But these statements arise from very different things. In Zacharias, his protest arises from disbelief in what Gabriel has just told him. “How could I know this true?” he asks. The implication is clear: he does not think what Gabriel has told him will come to pass.
In Mary’s case, however, her protest is one of puzzlement. “How can this happen?” she asks. But her question assumes that it is going to happen – in other words, she believes what Gabriel has told her. She simply doesn’t understand HOW it is going to come true, since she is a virgin.
When we’re doing one of those comparison shopping exercises on the internet, we eventually make up our minds which product to purchase, after we’ve evaluated the similarities and differences. I think Luke has laid out these two episodes precisely so that we can look at the similarities and differences in them and draw appropriate conclusions for our own lives. What would those conclusions be?
There are many conclusions one might draw, and I trust that the Holy Spirit – if your will receive his ministry to you – will bring any number of lessons to your mind that apply to you specifically. I want to point to two lessons which are appropriate for all of us as we set out together as a parish on this first season of Advent together.
First of all, I want to remind you of the relative obscurity of Elizabeth and Mary. They were not women in the limelight, nor were their husbands, nor were the villages in which they lived. This should be a great encouragement to each one of us individually and to us as a parish. None of us here are among the high and mighty of the earth. None of us are among the movers and shakers of Waxahachie, for that matter! Here we sit, in a smallish town, not particularly known as a hot bed of the English Reformation, and we purpose – Lord willing – to plant and grow a parish of Anglican Christianity. Sometimes I don’t know what is a more improbable kind of thing – a pregnant virgin, or the enterprise we’re undertaking!
But, no matter about the improbability. What’s encouraging is the ones God is always pleased to use as his servants. And that is people just like us, just like Zacharias and Elizabeth, just like Joseph and Mary. Small people, in out of the way places, because when God accomplishes his purposes through them, there is never any doubt that it is God who was at work to bless and to prosper them.
The second lesson I would draw for all of us is this – how much better it is for us all if we are disposed to believe that God will do such things in us and through us! You know, when God set himself to fulfill his promises through Zacharias and Elizabeth, Zacharias’ unbelief did not get in God’s way. It simply made things more difficult for Zacharias. There’s encouragement in that fact for us.
But, the exhortation for us from this passage in Luke is to do as Mary did, not as Zacharias did. Mary was and always will be, the purest and most emphatic model of faith we could want. She hears God’s word and believes it. She finds herself squarely on a path that advances God’s kingdom, and she sets out to walk on it. She learns that God is pleased to use her in fulfilling his promises, and she rejoices in it, as you can read for yourself in the following verses of Luke’s gospel.
God grant that we, who are small in number and reputation, will entreat God’s favor, to the end that he would use us to advance his kingdom, as he used Elizabeth and Mary. And, God grant us Mary’s faith, Mary’s obedience to God’s word, and Mary’s joy in finding herself chosen by Him to accomplish great things.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
