Good morning, Friends! We’re almost up to Christmas!
It feels like the month of December has flown past. We’re always in a rush to get to the part of the Christmas story we know best – the stable, the shepherds, the angels and the wise travelers who come with their wonderful gifts. But we’re not quite there yet! There’s another part of the story we still need to hear.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a young woman who was pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The young woman’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Luke 1:26-38
When Jesus was born, it was a troubled time. There were wars. Kings and emperors fought for power and mastery. There were huge migrations, as people fled from hunger, violence and poverty. A lot was going on!
No one really knew where God was. And most of the people who thought they knew, were wrong.
And then one day, an angel was sent from God to a young woman in a small village in the poorest part of the country.
We don’t know very much about Mary. She might have been only 13 or 14 years old. 18 or 20 would have practically been an old maid – too old for marriage in those days.
She was engaged to Joseph, who might have been her age, but tradition has often said he was a lot older than Mary, maybe twice her age, 25 or 30, perhaps.
It was the custom then, when a couple got married, for the man to provide a major gift to the family of the woman. It often took many years for a man to save up for the marriage gift.
In the mean time, they were engaged, but not married. It was a testing time, a waiting time, for both of them. They were supposed to be faithful to each other, but they weren’t living together, or sleeping together.
But then, an angel came to Mary, and said:
- Hello, there!
- God is with you
- Don’t be afraid
- God is very pleased with you
- You’re going to have a baby
- And the name is already picked out for you
The angel went on to make a bunch of predictions about this special baby:
- He’s going to be called the Son of the Most High, and he’s going to sit on the throne of King David
- He’s going to rule over God’s people forever; his kingdom will never end
Our translation says that Mary was greatly troubled, which is one of the biggest understatements of all time. Mary was sandbagged. She was blindsided. She was shocked right out of her shoes.
So the angel waited. Angels are good at that. When Mary could finally put more than two words together into a sentence, she asked, “How’s all this going to happen? I’m not even married yet!”
The angel said, “The Holy Spirit’s going to take care of it.” Actually, that wasn’t such a wild an idea back then as it might seem to us now.
See, people back then had this beautiful belief, that every child is born, not just because a man and a woman come together, but because a man, a woman, and the Holy Spirit came together. God was a part of each baby’s birth, from the earliest moment of conception.
The Hebrew Bible had many verses which echoed this belief:
- “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. . .” (Jeremiah 1:5)
- “Your eyes beheld my unformed substance; in your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them yet existed. . .” (Psalm 139:16)
So, it wasn’t a totally revolutionary idea that Mary could be pregnant without help from her husband. God was just contributing a little more than usual to the three-way partnership.
As you know, there are many stories in the Bible, going all the way back to Abraham and Sarah, about couples who hadn’t been able to have a baby until God got involved.
“Just for example,” the angel said, “your own cousin Elizabeth, who’s never had a kid in her life, is pregnant now, even though she’s already filed for Social Security!”
Mary had kind of run out of things to say. So she said, “All right! Here I am! I’ll do whatever God says.” And the angel took off.
That is part of the Christmas story, too. It’s as much a part of the Christmas story – maybe more at the center of the Christmas story – than all of the shepherds and angels and hallelujah’s and wise men put together. Christmas is also about Mary – her fear, and faith, her wonder and amazement.
Then it says “In those days, Mary set out and went with haste” to visit her cousin Elizabeth. I think it would be just as accurate to say that after the angel left, she freaked out and skedaddled to see her cousin.
She wanted to see with her own eyes if what the angel said was true. She wanted to see the baby bump. She wanted to feel the miracle of life with her own hands.
The writer in the gospel never says that it was wrong for Mary to go and check things out for herself. We may not put God to the test, but it’s OK to see if things are really true.
When Mary got to Elizabeth’s house, she called out to her cousin as she came in the door.
Mary called out, “Hey!” and something wonderful happened. Right then, Elizabeth’s baby moved inside her for the first time. In the old days, they called that first movement quickening, and it’s still a miracle for every mother, and for everyone who witnesses it.
And Elizabeth looked her cousin in the eyes and said, “You, too, are blessed! You’re going to have a baby, too! I knew it! As soon as I heard your voice, my own baby leaped for joy inside of me! You are so blessed! You believed what God told you, didn’t you?”
If it all happened the way the Bible tells the story, Mary hadn’t said anything to anybody what had happened. But somehow, her cousin knew, and her cousin’s baby knew, too. And Mary, who up to this point hadn’t really said a lot, finally found her words again.
She didn’t make a speech. She sang a song, a song of pure joy. The words of her song have come down to us:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
And my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
God cares for me, a humble servant!
From now on, all people will say that God has blessed me!
For the mighty God has done great things for me,
God’s mercy endures from age to age,
And holy, holy is God’s name!”
That prayer, that song, is also part of the Christmas story. It’s not just the angel choir, or the shepherds, or the people in the stable at Bethlehem. They’re part of the story, but we’re not quite there yet.
Jesus wouldn’t be born, if it wasn’t for the faith and trust of a young woman named Mary. Her acceptance, her testing and confirmation of what the angel said, and her joy and praise to God, are all a part of Christmas.
During the next couple of days, most of us have lots of things to do. I don’t know if my family and I can get done all the things we plan to do this week.
But in the midst of all of our plans, let’s all take time to remember God’s plan. None of this would be happening this week, if a scared young woman hadn’t found her faith. None of our Christmas plans would even exist, if Mary hadn’t said yes to the angel.
Let’s remember all these things, and remember this week that we are part of God’s story. God depends on us to stop what we’re doing, and say yes to God’s plan.
Maybe Mary saying yes is the best Christmas gift of all.