Year B Advent 4
Luke 1:26-38
Preached on Sunday, December 16 at Christ Church Christiana Hundred in Wilmington, DE

Sunday Sermon – December 17, 2017 from Christ Church Christiana Hundred on Vimeo.

May my soul proclaim the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoice in God my savior.

The song of Mary is my all-time favorite passage of scripture. In it she proclaims love, faith, and joy – with no sign of fear in the face of the change that God is calling her to. Her words set to music appear in our hymnal – S186[1] – one of my all-time favorites. Today’s gospel passage is just a few verses before her song.

What prompts a song to begin with?

One of my recent leisure activities has been to rewatch one of my favorite shows from my teenage years called Roswell. It’s a typical teen drama, but with healthy splash of science fiction: think 90210 but with aliens. In the past week or so, one of my favorite scenes came up. In this scene, a few of our heroes, human and alien alike, decide to throw a silly, impromptu dance party and rock out to some late-nineties pop music. One of the reasons that I like it so much is that I can picture my friends and I engaging in this exactly activity. Whether we were ten-year-olds and wanting to be Spice Girl, fifteen-year-olds and in the thralls of high school crushes, or thirty-year-olds and trying to deal with the crazy rush hour traffic near the construction merge on 141-North, there is always a song to belt out and dance to break into for every occasion as my hundred iTunes playlists further attest

Today’s gospel gives us the occasion for Mary’s song. We hear the story of Gabriel visiting Mary and delivering news that changed not just her life but all our lives. In the face of a message from God that redefined her world, Mary saw that this was not the end, chose faith overe fear, and found her song. Just before she burst into song, she proclaimed; “Here I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.[2] Our lives our full of beginnings and ends: births and deaths, new jobs and graduations, falling in and out of love. In our efforts to live as best we can, we dream dreams and make plans to achieve them. I imagine Mary had a plan for her life, too, before Gabriel showed up with all of his fanfare, and we know Joseph was a part of her plan. The world Mary lived in can feel far away to us, but within it, I’m sure Mary’s plans had the same bottom line as our plans do: Mary sought to build the best possible life for herself, and for whatever risk that might include for her, she sought to keep herself and those closes to her safe. One straightforward way to stay safe for her, and every other woman of her time, was to avoid getting pregnant outside of marriage, something considered a crime in her world. The punishment for this crime was death by stoning, a painful way to meet one’s earthly end. Gabriel’s message brought an end to the plan Mary had had. All the laws that the governed our human world and that science has determined about human life told Mary that God’s new plan was impossible, but Mary chose faith. Mary stayed true.  Mary didn’t tell Gabriel to go find some other young woman. Mary said yes. To paraphrase REM, for all the ways that it’s the end of Mary’s world as she knows it, and she feels fine. So fine (and faithful!), that she cries out “Here I am. The servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” She accepts that God has a new beginning for her and bursts into song.

When the changes and chances of our lives and the winds of the Holy Spirit sweep in, it’s so easy to fall prey the fear that creeps in in the midst of all our grief as our lives are upturned, but as Ruth told on the first Sunday of Advent, the Greek word “apocalypto” actually means “to reveal, to uncover, to disclose.” After Gabriel greets Mary and before he delivers the message to her from God, the angel sees that Mary is perplexed and says “Do not fear.” But when we’ve been hurt along the way – knocked to our knees more than once – it can be hard to trust.  It can feel like the safer route is to prepare ourselves for all of the bad possibilities out there rather than to have faith and choose to hope for the good ones.

Let me say that again: It can feel like the safer route is to prepare ourselves for all of the bad possibilities out there rather than to have faith and choose to hope for the good ones.

What God calls us to – and what Mary models for us in today’s gospel passage and in her song– is to choose hope. Perfect love casts our fear.[3] Last week, Stephen told us that when we are struggling to find the new beginning – the new life – that follows each ending, we are called – in our struggle – to strive to be found by God at peace. Being faithful means choosing hope, and choosing to believe in the endless possibilities of God gives us the peace we need to choose hope in the midst of the unknown. When Gabriel says to Mary “Do not fear” and reveals to her God’s plan for her life, Mary chooses faith in God over fear of the unknown and just before she bursts into song, she cries out “Here I am. The servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

We have songs for dance parties and songs for broken hearts. In the age of iTunes, there can be a playlist for every occasion, every emotion: for striving to choose hope and for rejoicing in that hope from God. There’s a reason we take care in selecting the songs for our first dance, our senior prom. Music can take us to moments or great feeling with people through whom we experience God’s love so deeply. Our songs have great power. There is a song on all of hearts that we go to when we jump for joy. In the words of a band called the New Radicals, “Don’t let go; you’ve got the music in you.”[4] And the music gives us hope. There is a song on each of our hearts to proclaim our love for God and to sing hope rather than fear. In this season of Advent, we are preparing for the coming of Christ – for the light of the world to come in the midst of the darkness.[5] Because Mary said “yes” to God.  Mary had faith that in God all things are possible. She showed us what it looks like to choose hope in a world of fear, and just before she burst into song, she proclaimed “Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.”

Here we are, the servants of the Lord, let it be with us according to your word.

[1] The Hymnal 1982

[2] Semisonic “Closing Time”

[3] 1 John

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7-CKirWZE

[5] For the voice to cry out in the midst of the wilderness