Reading, Sermon and Prayers for Advent 4

READING Luke 1:26-38

The Birth of Jesus Foretold

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! 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 favour 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 on 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.

SERMON

A large group of police detectives were conducting a serious breach into security files and an investigation of medical fraud at a local psychiatric hospital. After hours of reviewing thousands of medical records, this large group of detectives had worked up quite an appetite.

The senior detective in charge of the investigation called the nearby pizza parlour delivery service to order a quick dinner for his colleagues.

The following telephone conversation took place and was recorded by the detectives because they had to record all conversations in and out of the hospital whilst the investigation was under way. The recording is as follows;

Detective: Hello. I would like to order 19 large pizzas and 69 cans of cola.

Pizza Man: And where would you like them delivered?

Detective: We’re over at the local psychiatric hospital.

Pizza Man: The psychiatric hospital?

Detective: That’s right. I’m a senior police investigation officer.

Pizza Man: You’re a senior police investigation officer?

Detective: That’s correct. There are lot of us here.

Pizza Man: And you’re at the psychiatric hospital?

Detective: That’s correct. And make sure you don’t go through the front doors. We have them locked. You will have to go around to the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas.

Pizza Man: And you say you’re all police investigating officers?

Detective: That’s right. How soon can you have them here?

Pizza Man: And everyone at the psychiatric hospital are police investigating officers?

Detective: That’s right. We’ve been here all day and we’re starving.

Pizza Man: How are you going to pay for all of this?

Detective: I have my credit card right here.

Pizza Man: And you’re all police investigating officers?

Detective: That’s right. Everyone here are police investigation officers. Can you remember to bring the pizzas and cola’s to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked.

Pizza Man: I don’t think so. And he puts the phone down

The feeling that the Pizza Man had as he participated in that conversation must have been something like a teenaged girl named Mary felt that first Christmas. An angel, Gabriel, had come to her and said, “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you!”

Was it a dream? Was she hallucinating? She could not be sure. And she pondered on this and what the greeting of the angel meant. And as she ponders what the angel says to her:

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”

The bewildered Mary then says to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

How can this be….??? This is surely the question that rests upon so many of our hearts not just at Christmas, when we hear the story of Mary and of Joseph and of angels and shepherds and virgin births, but at other times of year as well.

How it can it be that God can come to this world and save it? How can it be that God can come to our communities and use us? How can it be that God can come to you and I and make a real difference to us, and through us to others?

We know how the angel answers Mary’s question…. The angel said to her, “God is pleased with you and you will have a son. 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 the Son of God…. for nothing is impossible for God”

Could it be that the answer to our individual versions of Mary’s question is somewhat the same? That God is pleased with us, that he favours us, and that his power will overshadow us and conceive in us and work through us that which we think to be impossible???

I don’t know what you find most impressive in the Christmas story. There are so many things to choose after all. But for me one of the most impressive parts of the Christmas story takes place right at the end of this story when Mary answers Gabriel’s announcement, when she responds to the call of God, with these words:

“I am the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

What faith Mary had. What incredible trust.

If I were in her shoes and in a sense I am and so are you, I’m not sure how I would react. Perhaps my response might be more like the pizza man’s reaction in the story at the beginning of this sermon – and less like Mary’s reaction.

How can this be that I have found favour in God’s sight? How can this be that God would do something impossible through me? How can this be surely it is but a dream, something not to be taken seriously in the light of day.

But not Mary! No, for Mary, though she asks the question, “How can this be?” she is also fully prepared to accept the answer: – the answer that nothing is impossible to God, and that yes, God is with her and that God wants to bless her and through her to bless others, and not simply to bless them with some loving, with some kind deeds, with the sort of things anyone can do, but to let actually let loose upon the world the full power of God Almighty, to actually be an instrument in making God’s promises of healing and of wholeness, and of vindication and salvation come true!

Mary lacks all the credentials that most humans think important for anyone making such a dramatic change in history. Indeed almost everything is against her: age, inexperience, gender, marital status, powerlessness.

But what Mary has in her favour is something that the gospel tells us that each one of us also has in our favour namely the grace and favour and love of God.

Through Christ – the child of Mary and of the Holy Spirit – each one of us – has been approved by God, chosen by God – to do mighty works – to bear fruit pleasing to God – to do things, Jesus tells his disciples – “that are even greater than the things that he himself did”.

The question is – do we have the other thing that was in Mary’s favour?

Her willingness to let herself be the servant of the Lord, – her willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to come upon her, – her willingness to believe that yes, it is true that with God nothing is impossible! – and that yes, God is indeed with me!

We know so well our inadequacies, and deep down many of us say to ourselves – how can God work through such a person as me? If God really knew the kind of person I was – then God wouldn’t even speak to me!

And it is true that all of us have lived lives that are less than what God hopes for, but God does not give up simply because we are weak.

God sees beyond our limitations to the wonderful possibilities that can happen if we trust in Him.

“Nothing is impossible with God” It is God who will be a creative force working through Mary. Mary is not called to fulfil this birth on her own – she can’t. Nor can we.

But the God who created heaven and earth, the animals and birds, the trees and flowers, the seas and all that is in them – that God – that Creator – can do anything.

Answering yes to God’s call may not be easy – there are so many things to ponder, yet Mary is able to make that leap of faith and to go ahead with God, – to go ahead even though all the answers, and indeed even though all the questions are far from clear.

As it was for Mary, so it is for us. The life of God is conceived and nurtured in each of us when we are willing to let it be so. It happens through God’s power, not our own.

The transforming presence of Christ is not just for Mary – nor just you or me. When we become God’s willing servants we become part of a larger hope for all God’s people: that hope we heard about in Mary’s song; the hope, indeed the reality, of God’s acts of mercy and justice on behalf of those who love Him in every generation, the hope that sees God acting to lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things.

The fact of the matter is, another unlikely choice has been made here today. The God who spoke to Mary through an angel now speaks to us through Holy Scripture, announcing that we too have been chosen to give birth, to give birth the “coming again” of the Christ child.

I could have told the story of Mary today in a very distancing way, as a story about something that happened a long time ago, as a story about a once and for all event, about a virgin giving birth, surrounded by shepherds and kings from afar..

But it’s not that kind of story at all. It’s a story about me and you and about our letting the Holy Spirit touch us so that the Christ begins to stir in our bellies.

We have been chosen. Comes now our choice. Our choice to prepare to receive this gift of new life, or ignore it.

That, in the end, is what Christmas is about. It is a story about today and about how each has the opportunity to answer the angel as did Mary.

The Angel is telling each of you this morning, and will continue to whisper in your ear: Greetings to you, O Favoured One, the Lord is with you.

And you know what that means: It means being part of the project that Mary was called to be a part of. It means being an entry point for God’s love to come into the world and to deliver people from the power of sin and death.

There is nothing more wonderful than that opportunity, the opportunity to bear the Christ – the Saviour – the promised one – into the world.

That’s what each of us is called to do according the grace given to us. And in the end that’s the only thing that will give us joy or happiness or peace.

And thanks be to God, it doesn’t matter where you are at now for God is not bound by our limitations.

With God nothing is impossible. And God is with us. Amen

PRAYERS

Loving God – as we approach the day of Christ’s birth help us to throw wide the doors of our hearts in preparation. Help us to sense the importance of what happened so long ago when Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, to remember the words of the angels and the prophets and the teachers of old, and to celebrate all the promises that you made through them.