ADVENT 2: Hope Revealed: Mary Says "Yes"

Scripture: Luke 1: 26-53 (portions) (TNIV)
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 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. “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. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”

And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for God has been mindful of the humble state of this servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is God’s name.
Whose mercy extends to those who fear, from generation to generation.
God has performed mighty deeds and scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
God has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble; filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.”

SERMON: HOPE REVEALED: MARY SAYS "YES"

Every time I turn to the song of Mary, I feel a certain honor at being allowed to share in her words of praise and acceptance—what a precious, private moment—almost painful with anticipation. And I experience, every time, a profound awe as I come to preach on these things. Come with me into the life of this simple Hebrew woman—so willing and ready—so wise and so young. Mary has so much to teach us as we prepare our hearts for the birth of the Savior. She is the first to know what God is up to and the first to say “yes” to God’s plan for the world. Here, in her simple song, Mary shows us the primary truth about God’s wonderful gift and the right and grace-filled response that we must make. Here, in this simple prayer, Mary calls us, as only the Mother of our Savior could call us to find ourselves in right relation with the giver of this great gift.
If Mary, when the angel told her of God’s plan, had responded the way we might respond in our busy-busy and somewhat self-centered world today, it might well sound like this. “Really Gabriel, I don’t have time to do this right now. I’m just 16 and I have my life ahead of me. You should find someone who is better suited, someone who wants to be the Mother of God, for goodness’ sake, someone who knows what they are doing. I just don’t think this is going to work out; it doesn’t fit with what I want for my life.” Or, on a more serious note, Mary could have asked God to release her from a fate that would surely render her an outcast, she could have focused on the trauma that was happening to her by saying, “God, please don’t do this to me—no one will stand beside me. This is too hard. It isn’t fair, it hurts too much. Please take this pain away from me.” But Mary did neither of these things. Mary said, “I am God’s servant, may it happen as you have described.” Mary said “yes!”
What does Mary’s song—or the Magnificat as it is called—say to us, today? We sit here, present to our own doubts and fears and we hear the song of the sweet 16-year-old. But Mary did not sing this song to the angel. After the angel left, the scripture tells us that Mary went to visit Elizabeth, her cousin, who was carrying her own child who would become John the Baptizer. Even in the womb, this baby appears to recognize Jesus, in whose name he would later baptize many. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and confirms everything the angel told Mary. Sweet community of two women—both called to bear children who would change the world. Mary, not to be distracted, immediately shifts the attention to what God has done in her life. God has remembered her, known her for who she is, remembered that she is a child of God. Mary knows that she has been chosen by God and says, “from now on all generations will call me blessed”. But lest we think that Mary thinks otherwise, she immediately clarifies she is blessed BECAUSE the Mighty one, Yahweh, has done great things for her and she proclaims “holy is God’s name.” Mary does not let us focus on her place or deeds—she constantly points us towards God. In the remainder of her song, she continues this recitation of God’s actions. In part, she states that Yahweh “has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. Yahweh has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. Yahweh has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” All of these statements point us toward the need to be in right relation with this God who is doing a new thing, giving a new gift.
Mary places herself in the context of right relationship and accepts the blessing that God bestows on her because of that right relationship. What can we learn from the simple song of Mary about “right relationship” as we use what she is telling us to open our hearts just a little further this week. “God has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.” Could this not mean that the proud are so filled with boastful and selfish thoughts that they cannot think about the truly important things, the deep, substantial thoughts, those that cause us as God’s children to be in right relationship with each other and with God. No, the proud are scattered in their thoughts—disjointed, separated from God and from each other—too busy thinking about themselves to think about anything else.
“God has brought down the rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble”. Mary knows that God is in control and that God’s people will be saved and lifted up when they are humble. Mary continues along the same thought: “God has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty”. When we come before God, hungry for right relationship, knowing that we are dependent on that relationship, God will fill us with good things. The child Mary conceived, Jesus, our Savior, undeniably showed us the extent to which God would go to redeem and liberate us, but His mother, Mary, this young girl from Nazareth, must first show us the meaning of right relationship with God so that we are in a place where we can receive redemption.
Mary had every reason to reject God’s special call. She was young, engaged and had certain social, religious and communal expectations placed on her. As has been pointed out in many sermons, speeches, and writings, the situation Gabriel proposed for Mary would have been, at best, tenuous, and at worst, devastating. Rather than allowing herself to fall into a chasm of despair and doubt, Mary said “let it be according to your word”. Mary made what appears to be an almost instantaneous decision to accept God’s will for her life. In my time in the ministry, I have read many writings and completed several studies on “discerning God’s will for my life”. When I meditate on Mary’s immediate and unconditional “yes” to God’s call, I wonder when it all became so complicated.
Is it that we THINK too much? Need too many answers? Want it all spelled out in four or five easy steps? Madeleine L’Engle, in her brief and beautiful poem After Annunciation gives us this interpretation of Mary’s response:
This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.

Even so, we grasp tightly what we falsely believe to be ours. What if Mary had held on to the security of her tiny world in Nazareth? What then? Oh, for the grace to be so lost in worship and praise that we can say, as Mary did, “Yes, let it be according to your word”.

We spoke last week of preparing our hearts anew this year. And, if we are to fully receive and celebrate God’s greatest gift in the birth of Jesus Christ again in our lives and our world, we must ponder Mary’s words and learn from her great wisdom.

I want to leave you with another short poem from Madeleine L’Engle. She writes:

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

This was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome:
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn—
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn—
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

Will you take the risk that Love takes? The risk to be in right relationship with God, to say “yes” to whatever is asked? To discover at the deepest level that this relationship calls us to know at our core that “it is not about us”—that it is about the promise and gift of God—that our relationship with God is itself a gift—that we are blessed to be visited by God regardless of the nature of God’s request of us. Will you find the time this Christmas to proclaim, “My soul glorifies God and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”?
O come, Lord Jesus, come…we wait in silence and humility for you to be born in our hearts anew. Amen and amen.

Questions for Sermon Circles:
1. Mary’s life is completely changed in one quick moment. Describe a time in your experience, or in the experience of someone you know, when life’s direction was changed by one event of decision.
2. What was the experience like for Mary—what are some of the words in the passage that help you get an idea of what Mary may have been feeling?
3. At the end of the visit from the angel, what does Mary know about the child she is to bear?
4. Mary and Elizabeth form a small but significant community of women who understand what God is doing. What role does community play in our own understanding of God’s will for us?
5. What does Mary’s song (the last paragraph) tell us about the nature of God?
6. What does Mary’s song tell us about the nature of the Gospel?
7. How do you think you would have responded to the visit from the angel? At 14? At midway through your life? Now?
8. What can we learn about responding to God’s call from the way Mary responded?