Advent 4 Mary’s Strong Song 12/24/06

We have been schooled over the generations, by Christmas hymns and Christmas pageants, to describe Mary as soft and meek and mild. In hymn #51, we sing: “To you this night is born a child, Of Mary, chosen virgin mild.” Perhaps it’s that “mild” rhymes so nicely with “child”…just a guess! This Advent I’m choosing to question the authenticity of this popular perception of Mary, the mother of our Lord!

Our Gospel lesson describes Mary, 3-months pregnant, in this way: “…set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”(Lk. 1:39) No mention of Mary traveling with Joseph, no family or friends; no mention of Mary traveling on horse back, nor on the bouncing back of a burrow. She “set out” alone, 3-months pregnant, traveling by foot to what Luke describes as “the hill country”. Meek, soft, mild?

Two first time mothers greet and share their recent encounters with God’s angelic messengers. The angel Gabriel announces to Zechariah—a self-professed “old man”--- that his “getting on in years” wife Elizabeth would conceive and bear a child. This same Gabriel, weeks later, came to Mary, living in her hometown of Nazareth, with an announcement of her God-planned pregnancy. The two mothers…one a teenager and the other much older…now share more than ordinary “baby talk.”

We dare not lose sight of Mary’s situation, more dire indeed than that of Elizabeth. Elizabeth is older, long married, with a husband holding down a respectable job, and having long-attempted to conceive and bear a child. Mary is a teenager, single, with no husband at all, and no previous attempts at conception. Add to this the slim likelihood of her story ever being believed. Hear the abbreviated version: visited by an angel who announced to her she would have a child of the Holy Spirit who would be the Savior of the world. Let any pregnant teenager try that one on her parents! Surely the neighbors would accuse the older Joseph of taking advantage of young Mary. Or, if he were not the actual father, Joseph would have had every ethical and legal right to break off their engagement. Did Mary have any brothers or sisters? Were her parents still living? We simply don’t know. But, what we do know is that no matter how we try to “color” it, Mary was a young woman just emerging from adolescence and, by God, in a desperate situation. No wonder, before she began showing signs of pregnancy, Mary scurried off to be with Elizabeth…the one person who might actually believe her extra-ordinary story of divine intervention, for Elizabeth herself had experienced God’s special touch. Surely Mary could count on her elder Elizabeth for advice on how to handle this situation into which she had been thrust by the God in whom she placed such trust. Meek, soft, mild?

Mary’s hope was realized when Elizabeth immediately greeted her---“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”(Lk. 1:42) Mary’s response turns Elizabeth’s remarks around…What matters is not what Mary has done, but what God is doing! This is always the response of the faithful and humble. I recall the chorus of a song by “Casting Crowns”- “Whom am I, that the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name, would care to feel my hurt. Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star, would choose to light the way for my ever-wandering heart. Not because of who I am, But because of what you’ve done. Not because of what I’ve done, But because of who You are!” Mary brings glory to God, who, alone, is the holy one!

The God who called Mary is the One who turns the world upside down, as Mary describes Him: God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”(Lk. 1:52-53) This is no mild-Mary singing these words, but a woman of faith whose word proclaims God breaking into life in ways that shatter old assumptions and undermine conventional authority and wisdom. Mary’s strong song reminds us that God’s people refuse to pronounce approval on a mis-behaving world. God’s people relate to a power that far exceeds human power. God’s people do not ask whether something can be done, they ask “Is it right?”---“Is it the will of God?” The prince of darkness says “adjust, adapt, get along, tolerate.” Mary, in this strong song, urges us to a restlessness with the world as it is, an awareness that this world is not as God intends it to be …a world where even the faithful admit sinning in “thought, word, and deed.”

Between this morning and tonight, 6 months will quickly pass. When we next gather in this place to worship: Elizabeth will have delivered her first child, John the Baptizer…Mary will be ready to deliver and---though not obligated---chooses to make the demanding and difficult trip with Joseph to Bethlehem! Amen.