Advent 4, December 18 2011
2 Sam 7:1-5, 8-11, 16; Rom 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38
“Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God.”
It sounds like good news. Mary might reasonably have expected to hear next that the prince was on his way with a glass slipper, and it would fit her foot perfectly. But the next thing she hears is very different from that. She will bear a son, and he will be the messiah for which Israel has been waiting.
Mary sees the difficulty here. She’s a good girl, and she is not married. How can she be pregnant? She probably also realizes that tongues will wag, and heartless gossips will make her life hell. But she says yes. Not knowing the future, she puts her trust in God and is obedient to His will.
The angel doesn’t tell her the rest of the bad news. Her son will not become a king. He will not even get a real job or marry a nice girl and give her lots of grandchildren. He will become a wandering preacher. He will be arrested as a troublemaker and will suffer an excruciating, humiliating, and shameful death. And she will suffer through it, because she said yes.
Mary plays a key role in Luke’s Gospel. In Luke 12:50, Jesus says, “Whoever does the will of my father is my brother and my sister and my mother.” For Luke, Mary symbolizes the good Christian. She appears at the very beginning of the Gospel as one who does the will of God even though the little she has been told does not sound like a bed of roses. And she is there again at the end, at Pentecost, when the disciples receive the same Spirit that overshadowed her at the beginning of the story.
When the Holy Spirit overshadows her, the life of God begins within her. This is not about biology. This is a story about trusting God, doing God’s will, receiving the Spirit, and coming to have the life of God lived within you. The Greek fathers of the church called Mary the Theotokos, or God-bearer, because she bore God within herself. In the first instance, this would be because she was pregnant with Jesus, but Mary also symbolizes the life of the Christian who does God’s will.
We never know what God has in mind for us. A few weeks ago, I left cold Ithaca for a pleasant long weekend in sunny South Carolina with my sister and husband. I looked forward to good weather and great restaurants. The day after I arrived, their beloved cat died, and they spent the day in mourning. The next day my brother-in-law left for a meeting in Washington, and the day after that my sister came down with MRSA cellulitis. Don’t get MRSA cellulitis. She’s fine now, but it took two trips to the emergency room, two different antibiotics, and intravenous hydration. That was not the weekend I had planned. But I am so glad that I was there to help out while my brother-in-law was out of town.
We’ve all had such experiences, in which the good news (I’m going on vacation) turns into bad news (death of a pet and life-threatening infection), which turns out to be good news after all (I got to help out my beloved sister). Mary had that experience in spades. She found favor with God. And by the way, she would suffer a life of sorrows—as Simeon said, a sword would pierce her heart. But it turned out to be good news after all: God lived within her, her son rose from the dead, and the Spirit came upon all of those who, like her, trusted in God and did his will.
My sister once gave me a little book on prayer that recommends starting each day with the words of the psalm: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” We don’t know what the day will bring. It may bring good news or it may bring troubles and sorrows. If God’s spirit is in us, then it will bring good out of either one.