A Story (and Song) to Live By

Luke 1:26-38

(art by Jen Norton)

One of my favorite Christmas songs is a modern-type carol. The song is called Christmas, written and recorded by the group Blues Traveler.  It is a song that captures what many of us feel at Christmas. A yearning for something more than the modern-day trappings of a Merry Christmas. A desire to participate in the miracle of the birth of the Messiah.

 Comes the time for Christmas

And I really have to ask

If this is feeling merry

How much longer must it last?

I wish a one horse open sleigh

Would come carry me away

But I've been waiting here all day

And one just hasn't come my way

Now excuse me if I'm not being reverent

But I was hoping for a miracle to hold me, wash me

Save me from my righteous doubt as I watch helpless

And everybody sings

The scripture reading up top (check it out if you haven't yet) begins with an angel being sent by God to deliver the news to Mary that her life is about to change forever. I wonder if archangels have doubts like humans, or if their angel status means their faith in God is absolute and unquestioning. I just can’t help but imagine how I would react if I were Gabriel and the first to hear of God’s amazing plan to burst into human history as an actual human.

Even if he were the most devoted and dedicated angel in all of heaven, Gabriel must have been taken by surprise that the Almighty, Immortal, Omnipotent God of all Creation had decided to become human. 2000 years later, this very idea is what still separates Christians from the other two world religions that worship the God of Abraham. Jews and Muslims alike find it blasphemous to even consider that God would ever in any way become anything other than divine.  So surely it must have taken Gabriel aback that God was considering becoming one of those frail, fallible, fearful humans.

 And while Gabriel is still trying to process this turn of events, God springs the next surprise. Gabriel is to go this backwater town of Nazareth and announce to a poor, peasant teenager that she is to be the mother of God. The bearer of the Holy One. The Theotokos.

 I have to wonder if Gabriel had to stifle the urge to blurt out “Seriously? This is how you’re going to play this?”  But surely angels are wiser than we humans. Surely angels know that God always knows best.  So I would wager that Gabriel didn’t make any comments or ask any questions, but dispatched immediately to deliver the news to an unsuspecting teenage girl who was preparing for a wedding. 

And as my favorite Christmas song continues, the yearning grows deeper and hope for a miracle gets stronger.

It's as if each year it grows

It's like you feel it in your toes

And on and on your carol goes

Harvesting love among your woes

I want to buy into the benevolence

And I was hoping for a miracle to hold me, wash me

Make me know what it's about

As the longing in me makes me want to sing

 The people of Judea were yearning and hoping for a miracle, too. They were poor and oppressed and living in occupied territory. Their prophets had foretold of a messiah who would save them all, and every year the hope grew stronger that maybe this year would be the year.

 And it is a really good thing that God saw fit to fulfill the prophecy some 2000 years ago. Before women were educated. Before the Renaissance. Before the technological revolution. Can you imagine if this whole story occurred today?

 Modern-day Mary probably wouldn’t even see or hear the angel. She would have to put down her phone, log off of her computer and take her earbuds out to even be present to such a presence.  And even if she did hear and see the angel, a modern-day Mary might very well chalk up such a vision to the stress that comes with planning a wedding. She might even call up her doctor and ask for a prescription to prevent further hallucinations.

But Mary, who would become the mother of God, doesn’t know any better when the angel appeared in her home. She sees him for what he is—a messenger from God. Though she most likely was illiterate, she had heard the scriptures at the synagogue and been taught Jewish traditions and stories by her mother. While the appearance of an angel would have been startling and amazing and overwhelming, Mary would know from her tradition and its sacred stories that such appearances are not unprecedented.

And while she may have been poor and uneducated, she was still saavy enough to know that the news that she would bear a child was impossible, and she is bold enough to question the messenger about how it could possibly be true. But after she gets a little more information from the angel, she agrees.

And this, friends, is the moment that life for Mary and for every person who ever came after her changed forever. It is not the moment God decides to become the Word made Flesh or even the point when Gabriel makes his announcement. The miracle moment of this story is the moment that Mary agrees. The moment she says yes.

And I’m not sure we here in the 21st century can even begin to imagine just what she was saying yes to. She was saying yes to bearing a child who did not belong to the man she was engaged to. She would bring great shame to her family. Joseph would have the right to call off the wedding and, should he choose, even have her stoned to death for dishonoring him. But she said yes anyway. In some ways, she knew exactly what she was saying yes to, but as to where this yes would take her over the next 30-something years, she couldn’t possibly have had a clue. Her faith and trust in God led her to believe that she could stand up against anyone or anything.

And that is the kind of faith and trust and courage that Christmas and the arrival of the Christ child should bring us. It is our annual reminder, arriving in the form of a beautiful story that has been told and retold throughout the centuries, that God is with us. We do not face the world on our own.

There are a couple of places in my carol where the singer almost seems to get that. He sings of a cold and frozen soul warmed to love by love’s own hand. But the part where I think he really may have something is when he sings of playing in the snow to celebrate in defiance of the winds that blow. I think he’s really close here.

This is a story to live by.

 This Christmas, may we be like Gabriel—ready to proclaim God’s message even when we don’t fully understand what God is up to. 

 This Christmas, may we be open to angels bearing messages from God. And like Mary, may we have the faith and the courage to answer the call.

This Christmas may we always be yearning to experience the presence of Christ and never fail to miss the opportunity to participate in the miracle of God-with-us.

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