THE ANNUNCIATION

Luke 1:26-38

 

“Every once in a while, life can be very eloquent,”1 writes author and theologian Frederick Buechner.  You go along from day to day, not noticing very much—not seeing or hearing very much—and then, all of a sudden when you least expect it, something speaks to you with such power that it catches you off guard and forces you to pay attention, whether you want to or not: An unexpected conversation with a friend in the neighborhood restaurant.  A lecture you’d thought about sleeping through but caught just in time.  Music that transports you into another dimension.  A stanza from a poem…words from Scripture…the sermon you heard last Sunday…a teacher who pulls you aside and says, “I like what I see in you.”

Whatever it is, something speaks to you with such directness and clarity that it’s as if it’s called you by name.  Plain old ordinary ‘you’ has been touched by the hands of the Holy, and something extraordinary has happened: a revelatory insight, the answer to a prayer, a renewed sense of self-confidence, a wake-up call…
…but bearing the incarnate God into the world?!  Can you imagine?

Well, for being such a major character in our Christian story, Mary certainly seems to spend a lot of time waiting in the wings.  We allow her to enter the scene at Christmas, and then again in Jesus’ final years, but for the most part, it seems we’d rather spend our time talking about someone else—like the Apostle Paul and all that he stands for, or the great figures of the Old Testament like Abraham, Moses and the always-popular prophets.  But not Mary. 

When the writer introduces her, all we get is a name – “The virgin’s name was Mary.”  Luke is careful to explain who Gabriel is and where he’s going—to Nazareth in Galilee—and we’re told that Joseph was a man from the house of King David.  But not Mary.  No, Luke makes it perfectly clear that Mary hasn’t been groomed for the part she will play in the unfolding drama that will forever change the world.  Mary is simply a young, peasant girl betrothed to Joseph, who—one day—finds herself entertaining an angel who’s got some surprising news to share.  “Greetings favored one!  The Lord is with you,” Gabriel says. 

And then we get to my favorite part of the story—the part where the NRSV totally botches the translation: “But Mary was much perplexed by the angel’s words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” Seriously?!  Don’t you imagine Mary’s response was a little more impassioned than that?  Mary was a real live person after all—not the fair maiden figure of our fairytale imaginations. 

And though we don’t know who she thought she’d be, or what she thought she’d do when she grew up, I think it’s safe to say that Mary never dreamed her life would end up looking like this. 

And we all know something of what that feels like, don’t we? 
One day we’re trekking down the straight and narrow path towards our well-planned future, and then we hear it: the dissonance of a passion-less life…the nagging “What if?” we can’t seem to shake…the voice of God pleading for us to step outside our comfort zones and into the life of faith: “Greetings favored one!  The Lord is with you.  Do not be afraid.”

And with all the fanciful imagery of angelic greetings and an impregnated virgin, Mary’s story certainly is a strange one.  But stories of annunciation and call are like that.  Just think about your own, and how you got to this place…and for that matter, where you think you’ll be heading next.  My guess is that your journey has been a little bit strange, too. 

You see it seems that annunciation is God’s preferred method of bending the events of history to fulfill God’s good and gracious purposes.  So when God calls ordinary folks like Mary, and ordinary folks like you and me—extraordinary things tend to happen.  Love is born.  Peace is sought.  Justice is pursued.  And reconciliation is made possible.  The world changes, and so does the direction of our lives. 

Be it by the hand of an angel or by the mundane of life, when God tags us with grace and says, “You’re it!” then in a sense, our lives are no longer our own.  We forfeit the hardwired desires we have for control and power to become like Mary—servants of the Lord who have been called by God to become active, creative partners in the ongoing work of God’s salvation project.

So in the end, this familiar story of the Annunciation of the Incarnation is more than a mere prelude to the wintry manger scene—it’s not another moralistic tale of virtue rewarded or vice punished, but rather, it is a story of the relentlessly unmerited nature of God’s amazing grace.  It’s good news that we need not wait until Christmas to tell.

Out of all the people in the entire world, God called Mary to be Jesus’ earthly mother…and out of all the people in the entire world, God has also called us to bear Christ’s light and hope in this world by loving and forgiving and healing as Jesus would.  Sisters and brothers, the story of Luke’s Gospel is the story of our faith, because it’s a story in which God has accomplished the impossible with the help of some of the most improbable individuals:
            The blind regain their sight.  The lame walk again.
            Fathers welcome home their estranged children.  Barren women conceive.
            Enemies are prayed for.  The guilty are acquitted.
            Sins are forgiven…tombs are emptied…and the dead rise to new life!
And the story continues, with us.
            So what is it that God is calling you to do? 
            Who is it that God is calling you to be?

If Gabriel is right and nothing is impossible with God, then what does this mean for your own life of faith?
           
The good news of the Annunciation is that God has extended the same disruptive grace to us, that God extended to Mary all those many years ago.  So be not afraid, for Christ has come that all of us might be God’s favored ones. 

The hands of the Holy have indeed reached out and touched us, and something extraordinary has happened!  The impossible has been made possible, and God has summoned us to bear Christ into the world. 

So pay attention.  This is just may be your wake-up call.  God is waiting.

1 Buechner, Frederick.  A Room Called Remember (Harper: San Francisco, 1984) p. 13.

 

Worship in a New Key
December 20, 2009

Grier Booker Richards

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