In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
(Luke 1:26-38)
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Like pretty much everybody, I love a good mystery. There’s nothing quite like reading or watching a good mystery – walking through the story with the characters and struggling with them to try to figure it all out. Sometimes I’m successful at solving the mystery and sometimes I’m not, but the fun is in the trying; the fun is in the existence of the mystery itself and the invitation the mystery represents to puzzle it out. I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t love a good mystery. Setting aside books and movies and TV shows, there are all kinds of mysteries in the world. What do we make of people who claim to have seen UFOs, or sasquatches, or yetis, or chupacabras? We might dismiss them as crazy, or we might just assume that they’re mistaken, or we might believe them, but the mystery is still intriguing, isn’t it? The fun is in wondering if it’s really true or not – or even if it’s possible! When I was a kid I was really into the whole UFO thing. There are a lot of really great UFO stories out there. I don’t know if many of you saw this in the news, but on June 17 of this year a wildlife photographer was taking photos in the marsh area near the General Motors headquarters in Oshawa, when he noticed this object off in the distance:
He said
“I was walking back to my car and I just saw something pop out of nowhere, way up high, far away in the sky. I thought it was a big turkey vulture so I just took a picture of it anyway and then it kind of hovered, sat there for a minute and then it took off. … A balloon wouldn’t go that fast and disappear … and it was too high. Nobody would be flying a kite there because it’s just railroad tracks and the road and there was nobody around there. … and where did it go? … It’s just really odd; I’ve never seen anything like that. … I don’t know what it is”
I’ve been to Oshawa a few times – and seen a few things there (a few of them kind of strange!) – but I’ve never seen anything quite like that. It’s a mystery – and it’s close to home! You have to love it!
There’s another – and far more significant – mystery that’s even closer to home for us. The Christian faith deals in mystery. The opening works of “A Song Of faith” - one of the United Church’s statements of doctrine – are “God is Holy Mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description.” And yet, for all that mystery, week after week we seek to know God better, even if we can’t know God perfectly. But rather than simple answers we proclaim mystery; rather than a simplistic view of God we proclaim a God who is Holy Mystery. Advent is a season of mystery, as we reflect on the nature of the God who boggles the human imagination by becoming one of us. During Communion services we often summarize the mystery of our faith with the words “Christ has died – Christ is risen – Christ will come again,” but I want to suggest that there’s a fourth and essential part of the equation that gets left out: Christ was born! That’s just as mysterious! At one time in my life of faith I would have called myself an Easter Christian and argued up and down and sideways that Easter was the central celebration of the Christian faith; that without the resurrection Christianity would be emptied of its power. Now, I haven’t abandoned either Easter or the resurrection. I still don’t believe there would be a Christian faith (at least not one we would recognize) without the resurrection, but I have come to the conclusion that I’m more of a Christmas Christian. Resurrection is central to our faith, but crucifixion and resurrection lost their focus if they themselves aren’t grounded in incarnation – in the birth of Jesus as God in the flesh, as strange and mysterious as that sounds.
The idea of God in the flesh may sound mysterious to us – but it was just as mysterious two thousand years ago to those who were closest to the event.
The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
There’s the question, folks: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” Actually, you can even set aside the last part of that question. It’s not that I don’t believe that Mary was a virgin, but maybe – just maybe – that isn’t really the point. Maybe all that really needs to be said is, “How can this be?” How could God be one of us? Why would God be one of us? Maybe the process by which that happened is less important than simply that it happened! Advent pushes us to consider the mystery of incarnation; to ask the questions and to embrace the uncertainties and in doing so to be touched and transformed by God.
Of Jesus, A Song of Faith says,
In response to who Jesus was and to all he did and taught, to his life, death and resurrection, and to his continuing presence with us through the Spirit, we celebrate him as the Word made flesh, the one in whom God and humanity are perfectly joined, the transformation of our lives, the Christ.
It is this union of the divine with the human that is the greatest of mysteries. This is the ultimate display of divine love – that God, who needs nothing, would nevertheless choose to experience the all that accompanies the existence of those whom God has created: joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, friends and enemies, loyalty and betrayal, and even birth and death. “This is love,” John wrote, “not that we loved God but that [God] loved us and sent his Son.” This is divine love freely given to us – the depth of which is perhaps the greatest of mysteries.
Advent and Christmas are invitations into the mystery of incarnation. When Mary asked, “How can this be?” the angel gave her the only answer possible: “the Holy Spirit will come upon you.” The Holy Spirit guides us ever so gently into the mystery that is God’s love, demonstrated by the coming of Jesus, and then ever so slowly the mystery is unraveled until we too come face to face with God’s presence among us and with God’s presence around us and with God’s presence within us, and, being touched and inspired and even overwhelmed by the experience, we then say as did Mary “let it be with me according to your Word.” The mystery of incarnation reminds us that we are indeed to wait upon God – to wait for God’s call upon our lives and to respond to it humbly, serving God even as God served us through Christ. Let us, then, celebrate the mystery that is the birth of Jesus, and that God appeared in him.
Incarnation – God in the flesh – raises a lot of questions, but ultimately the Holy Spirit provides the answer – God is love, God came to us out of love, God came to bring us love, and God calls us to love. In response to that call, may we – like Mary – say, “let it be with me according to your will.”
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