There are certain times of year, certain Sundays that I must fight the desire to listen to the Gospel and just sit down. What can you say after such beautiful words? It’s so beautiful, so profound, so moving, it seems like anything said afterward is superfluous at best and rather insipid at worst.
Yet I also have an urgency to stand and applaud. I am not sure there is anything more moving, more beautifully written, and more theologically profound that the words that came out of this young pregnant teenager on hearing that she will become the God bearer, the mother of God’s own son.
Julie used to accuse me of making Mary younger every year. I think she started out at about 17 and eventually made it to 12. But her age isn’t what causes me to sit up and pay attention. It’s her willingness to agree to something which may end disastrously for her that makes her stand out. Can you imagine what that scene was like, I mean at its very best this is a very odd way to tell a story about how Mary got pregnant with Jesus.
Here is a young, unmarried girl being told by an angel that she is soon to become pregnant. Bad enough, right? But hold on, it gets worse. One of the things that stands out to me is the whole angel thing. I mean how often does an angel show up with news like this? Or how many times does an angel show up with any news at all? OK, maybe you are sitting there thinking Darrel don’t take this so literally. To which I would respond, hold on, what does that even mean? There’s something here that goes way beyond the story of the event. To make it a mythological attempt to describe the announcement that the Messiah was soon to enter God’s own creation, is to miss the point. It’s a bit like rejecting a TS Eliot poem by saying that it wasn’t literally true or to say a Rembrandt painting should be thrown away because he didn’t paint an actual event that he witnessed. I am not saying that the Angel that showed up to Mary was an imaginary angel. I am not even asking the question. What I am saying is that the event of the incarnation is such a cataclysmic event, how can we even share the story in a way where people will pay attention. Our problem in the world around us isn’t that people don’t believe the story, they are just simply not paying attention. There’s not a lot of argument going around on whether or not an angel showed up to a teen-aged girl to announce that everything was about to change. That’s not an issue. What is at stake here is whether anyone even hears us.
Just look at the way the world celebrates Christmas. When we lived in Katy, we loved to walk around our neighborhood at night, especially between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We would rate all the yards that had those inflatable Christmas decorations. The tackiest display was always the winner. And as I remember, there was not much of an argument about which inflatable was the worst… or maybe I should say the best. The tackier, the better and if it was theologically vapid or whimsical or upsetting, then the more likely we were looking at a winner. There were the typical contestants that for some reason always had a character or two from “A Charlie Brown’s Christmas.” Then of course, one of my favorites would inevitably show up somewhere and that was the inflatable Santa, kneeling in front of a manger, smiling at the Christ child. That one was hard to beat. But my favorite, year in and year out was always the inflatable green or purple dinosaur, flapping in the wind, wearing a Santa stocking cap and posing in any number of different ways. Nothing says Christmas, I guess, more than an inflatable dinosaur with an ugly sweater.
I am pretty sure a green dinosaur didn’t carry the angel into Mary’s house so that it could announce to her what was about to happen. We don’t need the dinosaur, but I do believe we need the angel.
Angels can be described in several ways but for us this morning let me draw your attention to the way people reacted every time one showed up. It happens here in our story this morning. These people seem to be minding their own business and an angel flaps in from on high, landing, I guess, a few feet away from the human and then utters these very familiar words before the message that they were given from above is uttered. The angel opens his or her mouth (I am not sure the gender of these angels, but they do have masculine names), and then whispers, I suspect these two words that were supposed to relieve anxiety, but I am not sure they did: “Fear not.” Ok, an angel out of nowhere, and I am guessing they’re pretty tall, with big wings and, I don’t know, maybe clawed feet? And they tell the person to whom they were sent to not fear? Good luck with that.
But that’s not the point. The point is that something important, perhaps even earth shattering was about to be shared. I mean we don’t get stories of Angels all that much in Scripture. So, when one does make an appearance, we’re supposed to put down all those things we are doing and listen! And not fear.
I think that’s one of the profound things about the story. You see, I think I can speak for the lot of us, but if an angel were to show up, I am not sure I’d even hear it say “fear not” because I would be running as fast as I could in the other direction.
When there is an angel in the story, if it doesn’t cause us to run away as quickly as our legs will carry us, we are supposed to pay attention. I sometimes wonder if all of the hustle and bustle of the season, the sleigh bells roasting on an open fire, or is that chestnuts, the Tiny Tim’s being delivered large turkeys for Christmas dinner, snow and Christmas in Connecticut, all of the verses of “I’ll be home for Christmas” or “White Christmas” keep us in a deep winter slumber and we, because of being so preoccupied with trying to reinvent that one Christmas we had years ago that seemed so meaningful at the time, are asleep. We’re not paying attention.
Well, you may be paying attention, but the world is asleep at the wheel. What we need, indeed what we have, is an Angel dressed up in its most dreadful, showing up and announcing that from this time on, nothing will ever be the same. Yes, we need this angel. The world needs this angel to first of all disorient us and then, ultimately to reorient ourselves to the truth that God so loves the world that God is about to make an appearance in the world as one of us.
And thankfully, even though that’s probably enough, the story continues. I think we’d rather stay stuck looking at the Angel because it’s just as unexpected as a green dinosaur but if we do, we miss the part of the story that not only reorients us but redefines how we are to react to this very unlikely story of how God reshuffles the deck. Or how God fulfills the promise of God’s love to the very creation that God created and that had lost its way.
And it all seems to rest on this peasant girl who stands eye to eye with this fearsome creature with words that sound like bad news but that end up being the most joyful, hopeful, life-giving and loving words ever spoken. The angel tells her that she will bring forth from her womb the Messiah, the Lord, Emmanuel, God with us.
The scene in this morning’s gospel takes place a bit later but in it we hear clearly Mary’s reaction, her response to the news that Angel has brought to her.Her song, prefaced by an Angel and her cousin’s child leaping for joy is the most beautiful song of faithfulness that we have in the story ofour faith.
If we weren’t paying attention, if we were busy wrapping presents or decorating the tree or guzzling egg nog, we might have missed what was being sung here. His mercy, she sings, is for those who fear him. That doesn’t mean that we must be frightened in order to find God’s mercy. Fear, here, means to be in awe. And you have to be asleep to not be in awe. You see, she describes beautifully and poetically the way God has turned everything upside down, or better, how he has set everything right. It’s not the powerful who have been lifted up, but the lowly. The rich have been sent away empty, while the hungry have been filled with good things. God has entered God’s own creation to settle the matter once and for all. The kingdom of the powerful and mighty has been overthrown. God’s realm of mercy, goodness, and love has taken its proper place among the people, rather or not they noticed.
That’s why we need an Angel because he is there to wake us all up. Mary announces to Elizabeth and to anyone who is awake the ultimate game changer. The world will never be what it once was. God’s love has the last word. God’s realm has come. How could Mary have done anything else other than kick up her heels and sing so loudly, it will eventually awaken all who sleep.
My question to you this morning is simply, did you hear the good news? It came to us through a terrifying angel and an unlikely teen-aged peasant girl, God is with us. Emmanuel.