Luke 1: 26-38 (December 18, 2011): Nothing will be impossible with God

Nothing will be impossible with God

Luke 1: 26-38 (December 18, 2011)

1) The Text

26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He 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. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35The 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. 36And 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. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38Then 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.

2) Perspectives/Questions

a. Is God present in the baby Jesus?

The history of the Church’s reflection on the stories of Jesus’ birth is probably as complicated and mysterious as the stories themselves. It is probably impossible for us to hear the birth stories – to “get” them – with the same ears – the same understanding – as the first hearers would have.

For one thing, we need to remind ourselves that for many centuries the birthday of Jesus was not a major celebration in the church. The church does not exist because Jesus was born; it exists because Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose again on the third day. Holy Week and Easter Sunday are the founding festivals of the church.

We also need to remind ourselves that it is only within recent times that childhood is understood to be a time of development with genuinely different phases, ages, and stages; with genuine novelty and growth at each stage. Prior to this, children were understood to be like young plants that simply grew into larger versions of themselves, but with no fundamentally different developments along the way.

Thus childhood was always interpreted in hindsight: what was true at the end of a person’s life must also have been present at their birth. Just as Jesus rose from the dead – emerged from the tomb – with a spiritual body, so it must have been true that he emerged from the womb with a spiritual conception.
The spiritual conception of Jesus at the beginning of his life is just another way of pressing home the question, “Who do you say that I am?” Is God present in Jesus or not?

The story of Jesus’ life is bookended with a special embedding of the spiritual and the material (spiritual conception at birth; spiritual body at resurrection). Also, just within each bookend, as the first and last “books” on the shelf, are stories of total shame, violation and degradation (pregnancy outside of wedlock; naked execution on a cross).

And just as the opening of the story of Jesus’ execution is his struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane, ending with, “Not my will but thine be done;” so there is a parallel in the story of Jesus’ conception, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be to me as you have said.”

Whatever the actual circumstances of Mary’s conceiving of Jesus may have been, the story is not hushed up and buried over. It is remembered. And Mary testifies that as it was at the end, when the power of God’s love redeemed a shameful death, so it was at the beginning, the power of God’s love was present then too and redeemed a shameful birth.

b. Who is Mary?

Who is Mary? It seems like everyone has a different answer to that question. To our culture Mary is a figure in a snow dome, silent, immobile, gazing at the manger; a plastic figure to be taken out of the box of ornaments for a few days a year.

To Roman Catholics, she is a venerated figure. Roman Catholics believe Mary acts as a go-between with us sinners on earth and God in heaven. During the Middle Ages, Mary became important in the prayer lives of the common folk. She was seen as one who could empathize with their plight and mediate forgiveness. In the councils of the Church through the centuries, she gradually gained in supernatural qualities. She was declared absolutely free from personal sin before her birth and to this day. Protestants may feel Roman Catholics overemphasize Mary’s role. For many Protestants, Mary is just a peasant woman chosen to facilitate the arrival of the Son of God. Roman Catholics may feel that Protestants underemphasize Mary’s role.

Both worship of Mary and reducing Mary to her biological role miss out on something very important: Mary’s example as a person of faith, struggling with the daily demands of her life. It is this Mary who can help us prepare spiritually for the coming of her son. It is the gospel of Luke that portrays the fullness of Mary’s humanity as an example of faith for us. Luke cracks open the snow dome and lets Mary out to stand flesh and blood, life-size, before us and invite us to participate with her in giving birth to, raising, mourning, and eventually, following Jesus Christ our Lord. He portrays her in a startling role: one that shakes up the way we’ve been brought up to think of her and invites us to stop observing her and start imitating her.

For Luke, Mary is first a prophet. We think of Mary, not as outspoken, but as quiet and passive. Yet in the Canticle of Mary (Lk. 1:46-55) she sings a song of praise to God who shakes up the status quo, who lifts up the humble like her, and chooses her, rather than a high born woman, to be bearer of God’s Son. She foreshadows her son’s ministry that will likewise lift up the lowly.

Her call to be a prophet follows the Old Testament’s four-part prophetic commissioning: call, objection, God’s ignoring of the objection, and God’s final assurance that God is committed to the prophet and his/her mission.
The Call of God: First comes the call of God to the prophet. Isaiah and Ezekiel saw visions. Jeremiah heard only a word, Elijah a still, small voice in the silence of his heart. In Mary’s case, God sent the angel Gabriel to confront her. Then God tells the prophet that he has been chosen and what he is to do. God told Jeremiah, “I have appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.” The angel says to Mary: “And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus . . .”

Objection to the Call: The prophet objects to the commission by protesting his inadequacy or pointing to some factor that makes it impossible. Jeremiah said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” Moses protested that he wasn’t a good public speaker. Mary said, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

God Ignores the Objection: In the entire Bible, God never listens to someone’s objection and says, “You’re right. You’ve convinced me that you’re not as qualified as I thought. I’ll keep looking.” The prophets were not chosen because they were ready to be chosen, because they felt confident in their abilities and it was a good time for them to clear their calendars. They were called when God was ready to call them.

God’s Reassurance of Commitment to the Prophet: God reassures the prophet that the divine presence will abide with him in carrying out the call. The prophet’s job description is to be a messenger for God, to do and speak what is commanded. In fulfilling this task, God promises to be with the prophet as deliverer. “Hail, O Favored one! Do not be afraid, The Lord is with you! . . . Nothing will be impossible with God.”

Mary the prophet urges us to be on the lookout for signs of our own resistance to God’s call. If God would not listen to her rather convincing objection, why would God listen to ours? How frightening to have our familiar excuses pulled out from under us by God’s reassurance that God will be with us! God will help us bear the burden of answering the call. God will give us grace to meet its sometimes grueling demands.

c. Have you ever been criticized for something you valued?

In our multi-cultural, multi-generational world, values are bound to clash. What one group holds dear, another trashes. What one holds out in pride, another hides in shame. There is not a consistent measure with the content and origin of honor. What is valued? And who values it?

What is your greatest value? Reputation? Wealth? Power? Imagine if someone asked you to give up something you deeply valued, for a higher value. In a small Jewish hamlet, a young girl was asked to give up her reputation for a greater honor. The favor of God. And she agreed.

Let’s consider the place of girls like Mary in the social pecking order of first century Palestine. In a gender segregated, male dominated society, young girls like Mary were sheltered from the outside world, in order to protect their virginity and insure the honor of the family. In addition to family honor, young girls were not educated. Literacy lay with the male, since females were considered too inferior and emotional for education. Girls symbolized by Mary stood at the bottom of proper society.

When the angel greeted Mary, she reacted in an appropriate social manner. Confronted in private, Mary wondered why she was greeted (young girls were considered to be too insignificant to greet). She also feared from the implications of the greeting. (Were her honor and the honor of her family compromised?) [1:29] The news would not get better for her. The angel proposed a conception and birth that could endanger her arranged marriage with Joseph and put her life at risk. (According to Deuteronomy 22:20-21, a girl who was not a virgin before marriage could be stoned to death.) [1:34]

To overcome Mary’s concern, the angel proclaimed her honor before God. She was highly favored by the Almighty. [1:28, 30]. And her son would by highly favored by God, for God would give him a title, and intimate relationship, and royal power over his people that would never end. [1:32-33]. Notice God gave her honor with his presence [1:28b] and with a mission [1:31]. The Lord would also honor her when he was present to her child and gave him a mission. (In ancient society, women could not have honor on their own; they could only stand in the honor of their husbands and sons. Hence, there was the important connection between Mary’s honor and that of her Son.)

Gabriel announced the conception and birth of royalty. Mary’s child would be “great” (as unique and history changing, like Alexander the “Great”). He would be Son of the “Most High” (a title for the greatest God, the highest concept of divinity one could have. The title “Son of” indicated a unique, intimate relationship with this highest God and a sharing in this God’s power). He would have the Davidic throne of Israel forever. [1:32]
Faced with Mary’s objection, the angel reasserted her honor and that of her child. She would encounter (the Holy Spirit) and receive the protection of her true husband, God himself. (The wife lived under the “shadow” of her spouse. Mary would live under the shadow of the Most High). Her Son would have the titles of “holy” (in this case, equivalent to the word “great”) and “Son of God.” [1:35] Notice, God took the initiative in this announcement. He would impregnate the virgin. He would call her Son his own (see the passive voice (“he will be called”) of Gabriel’s announcements in 1:32a and 1:35b).

To reassure Mary, the angel announced the pregnancy of her relative Elizabeth. An elderly woman believed to be barren, Elizabeth could be paralleled with Hannah, the elderly mother of Samuel, last and greatest of the Judges (see 1 Samuel 1). If God could make the sterile fruitful, certainly he could father a king through a lowly country girl. [1:36]

Mary had no way out. The angel had upheld her honor in the face of future gossip; her honor would come from God, not from petty humans. Her son would be the Messiah; she would share in his honor. And, the impossible would take place within her elderly relative and her own womb. But she did not merely give in. Mary proclaimed her status as a daughter of Israel (Look, the servant of the Lord!).

Human honor is, indeed, fleeting. But God’s honor stands forever, even in the face of criticism. Mary accepted, even proclaimed, God’s will in her life. She placed her future in the hands of the Father. Her example should inspire us to stand firm as Christians in today’s ever-changing fads and fancies. Remember, the words of others may sting, but the Spirit of God burns within. The divine fire can withstand the darts others fling toward us.