Micah 5:2-5
Luke 1:26-55
Christmas is the beginning of a revolution.
At least, that's how Mary sees it.
The story of Christmas – the news of the impending birth of Jesus – has turned Mary's life upside-down. She no longer gets to be normal. No, from now on, all of history will remember her. And, sure, in the words of her cousin, Elizabeth, she will be remembered as the blessed one, as someone special and holy and chosen by God. But, I dunno, I wonder if that's not much comfort when your whole life has been rearranged. Her relationship with Joseph – her fiancé, her husband – well, let's just say that "I got pregnant and it's not yours but don't worry it's God's child" is the kind of conversation starter that is likely to need to be unpacked a bit. She's got relationship drama. She's got pressure – "wait," she must have wanted to ask the angel, I would have wanted to ask the angel, "wait, you're saying I'm supposed to raise the savior of the world? How exactly am I supposed to do that? Where's the course curriculum for 'Messiah-in-training?' Are there tutors who specialize in that?" Her plans for her life no longer seem to matter much, everything is getting thrown in a blender. As Matthew tells the story, within a few years she will be a refugee, on the run for her life, crossing borders, going to a new nation where she has no friends or family, with no place to lay her head, because those in power want to kill her son. Luke doesn't tell us about that part of Mary's life, but he does tell us a less threatening – and nonetheless overwhelming – story about Jesus as a twelve-year-old – when Mary and Joseph lose Jesus for days on end, and then find him sitting in the temple, displaying wisdom and insight beyond his years, telling them that "of course he was in his father's house." Parenting a tween can be challenging enough. Imagine if your tween not only thought they were God's gift to the world, but, you know, actually was?
My point is that Mary just got signed up for a whole lot of trouble, a whole lot of change, a whole lot of anxiety and stress, a whole heap of mess. She can't have known all of that – she can't have been sure how her life will change – but when an angel shows up and says "don't be afraid, but you're going to have a baby unlike any baby who has ever been born – in a way that's never happened before or since – and he's going to bring salvation to the whole world" – I mean, she may not have known the exact details of what was coming for her, but she had to know that things were about to get crazy – I mean, my goodness, there's an angel there in her living room! Things had already gotten crazy.
And, yet, she says yes. She says, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said.” Or, as another translation puts it, "Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word." You see, here's one of the real keys to this story: Mary is able to say yes to God now, in this moment, because she has already said yes to God long before this. This is not a moment of conversion in Mary's life. This is a moment of consistency. Mary is a faithful daughter of God's people Israel. This woman – the woman who will teach Jesus the Scriptures, who will teach him what it means to be Jewish, to be one of God's chosen people, who will share her flesh with one whose flesh is bruised for us, who will share her body with the one whose body is broken for us, whose blood runs through the veins of the one whose blood is spilled on the cross – this woman has already said yes to God.
Now, hear me: God doesn't choose Mary because she's earned it, because she scored high enough on the "ready to give birth to God's son" aptitude test – God's calling is always a free gift, God's blessing is always more about God's love and goodness than it is about our worthiness. Mary is chosen by God's free grace. She didn't earn this privilege – if you can call having your life blown up for the sake of God a privilege. But she has been prepared for this moment. Her yes is made possible by the years of faithfulness, by the life of commitment to God, by a heart formed in the story of God's love for God's people.
And that is an essential thing for us to see in this story – it is an essential model for our life of faith. The big moments in life – the moments of faithfulness, the moments when we say yes to the big thing God is doing, the moments when we say no to the big temptation – they aren't really, primarily, about the moment itself. Those big moments are about all the little moments that came before them, the little moments that got us there. The big moment of faithfulness is made possible by the lifetime of faithfulness that proceeds it. Mary is able to say "yes" to God in this big thing because she's made a habit of saying "yes" over and over, every day, through all the little things, in all the little moments. When you read your Bible, when you pray, when you come to worship, when you talk about and think about things that matter, when you do justice, when you practice generosity – every little act of discipleship, every little act of faithfulness, is practice, it's formation, it's training for the big game, for the big moment, when it's really going to matter. As my dad liked to say on the way home from basketball practice – especially if I had spent practice goofing off with my friends – "how you practice is how you are going to play." Mary is able to say "yes" to God in this moment because she's spent her whole life doing it, has spent her whole life preparing for this moment, even though she didn't know it.
All of that is another way of saying that Mary is Jesus's first disciple. She is the model disciple – fully committed to God's plan for transformation, even when it costs her everything. She is a follower of Jesus before he is born, she is with him in his last days – as he approaches the cross – and then, as Luke records in the book of Acts, she is part of the early church, faithfully trusting in, sharing, the Good News of the resurrection.
Mary, from the beginning, hears the God's story, trusts in the Good News of Jesus, and then shares it with others – she does what all followers of Jesus are called to do, she tells the story to anyone and everyone who will listen. But, Mary also shows us that the task of discipleship, our job as followers of Jesus, is not just to repeat the Good News – that Christ is Risen, or, in this story, that God's Son is coming to save the world – our job is not just to repeat the Good News – our job is to interpret it, to say what it means for our world. And that's what Mary does in the last passage we read, in the song she sings to her cousin Elizabeth – a song that is called "the Magnificat" – named for the first word of the song in its Latin translation, a song that's central to the faith of many Christians from many traditions around the world.
In this song, in this prophetic announcement that she makes to her cousin Elizabeth, Mary interprets what God is doing – entering into the world, born as a human being, born to a peasant woman from the middle of nowhere, born as one of the poor, the outcast, the marginalized, born on the edge, on the outside, far from the halls of power – Mary interprets this revolutionary way that God has chosen to be with us, and she sees it for what it is, a revolution. The world is turned upside-down. The rich should be nervous, Mary says, because God has declared God's self to be on the side of the poor. The powers-that-be are in trouble, says Mary, because God has chosen to be born as one of the weak. Those who have more food than they need should be wary, we are told, because the hungry have found their champion. Those who are high up, and in power, are about to be cast down. The systems of injustice and abuse that order this world are about to get torn down. Abusers and hate-mongers are going to get their come-uppance. God is transforming our world – lifting up the lowly, welcoming the outcast, loving the unloved, honoring the rejected, crossing boundaries, erasing borders, tearing down walls, creating a new community, a new Kingdom, in which our sin is overcome, the brokenness of this world is healed, and all is put right. All things are being new, the world is being transformed, hope is being born; the revolution, says Mary, starts now.
And what Mary is saying is that this is the mission statement, this is the manifesto, this is the founding document, the constitution of God's Kingdom, of Christ's beloved community. The community her son will found, the people he will establish, the church he will build – we are to be defined by this radical, counter-cultural, boundary-breaking, world-transforming love. We are to be people, God invites us to be people, who say "yes" to God just as Mary did. We are to be people to tell God's story over and over again, so that we can live out that story, join God in writing the next chapter of the love of Jesus. We are to be people who are on the side of those who Mary names, those with whom Jesus would spend most of his time – the poor, the oppressed, victims of injustice and survivors of abuse, the outcast, the lonely, the hungry, sick, the left out – we are invited, we are called, to be a community of people on the side of the those who are on the underside of life. Mary hears that God's Son is about to be born, and she interprets this change, this new thing, as a challenge to the way things are – and as a promise that God is going to put right all that is so wrong.
How do you hear the promise of Jesus coming into our world? How do you hear the news that God's Son has been born, the promise that Christ will come again in final victory, setting right all that has gone wrong? How do you hear Mary's word that we, God's people, are invited to join her – to join her son, Jesus Christ – in a revolution of love, in building a community in which outsiders are welcomed and the downtrodden are lifted up and those who are broken are offered healing and wholeness? Mary asks us to look at our world and ask where God's revolution of love needs to be brought to bear, needs to be put into action, in our time. Mary calls us to ask ourselves how we might join her – and join Jesus – in God's work of resurrection, in the work of transformation and making all things new. Mary sings her song of God's new creation, of the transformation Jesus will bring, and she asks her to sing alongside her, to join our lives to the work of love, to the work of healing, to the work of hope.
And, here's the Good News – Mary invites us to join her in saying "yes" to God, she invites us to join her in the work of following Jesus, but she also knows – and reminds us – that while we have much work to do, the work does not, ultimately, depend upon us. When we get it wrong, when we fail to follow faithfully, when we are not on the side of love – even then, God is still at work. Even when we fail, God's victory – the victory that God has won in Jesus, through his death and resurrection, and also through his birth – the victory God has won in Jesus is the ultimate victory, which means that, in the end, all shall be put right, whether we get it right or not – in the end, death has been and will be defeated, even if we mess up along the way. God is faithful. Christ is victorious. Mary saw that. And she invites us to join in that victory – to experience it, to put it into action – right now, today. We are invited to follow Mary as she follows Jesus, joining in the revolution of love that she proclaimed.
Can you see the future that Mary saw? Can you see the hope that set her heart on fire? Can you see the love that fueled her song of revolution? It's the love that made us, the love that saves us, the love that God sends into the world, the love that was born in a manger. It's the love that lit the fire of a revolution – and we are invited to join it.
Comentarios