Mary — Andy James

Mary: Casting Aside Fear

December 13, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:26-55
preached on December 13, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

It had begun as an ordinary day in an ordinary town in Palestine for an ordinary hometown girl Mary, but by the time it was over everything was different for everyone. In the midst of this ordinary day, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and gave her the surprise of a lifetime. She had to have been startled and afraid, to say the least. What did God want to do with her anyway? She was just a young girl, waiting for her day to come as she would move into full adulthood upon her marriage to Joseph, preparing for the journey of life that seemed to be clear before her—but not yet begun—in marriage and childbearing, watching for something new to take hold in her own world and in the world around her.

But the angel Gabriel explained that God could and would do amazing things in and through her. First, he assured Mary that there was nothing to fear in this surprising visit. She had “found favor with God” and would “conceive in [her] womb and bear a son,” who would “be great, and… called the Son of the Most High.” Even her virginity would not get in the way of all this, for she would bear this holy child by the power of the Holy Spirit. After all this, just to make it abundantly clear, he closed by assuring her, “Nothing will be impossible with God.” Mary responded with confidence beyond her young age: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” As the angel left her, she returned to her day, her life forever changed by this encounter on this ordinary day.

The days that change us usually start out looking pretty ordinary, too. Whether things change for the better or the worse, there is strangely little that distinguishes days of great change for us from others at first. The day we get a new job offer, the day we learn of the death of a good friend, the day the world around us seems to break down in yet another way—all these days begin in the same way even though they end with incredible shifts of life to bring us hope or cause us despair.

While our ordinary days are rarely if ever marked with the sort of direct encounter with an angel of the Lord as Mary experienced, we might find God in our midst in unexpected ways on our ordinary days. Maybe we will receive a surprising possibility that offers us a new and different way for the days ahead. Maybe a crisis will come that leaves us seeking God’s presence and hope as we respond. Or maybe our hopes and expectations for life have been upended, with no clear understandings of different possibilities for the days ahead even as we are challenged to set aside our fears and live in hope.

Amid all these unexpected encounters with God, the angel’s words to Mary should echo in our lives, too. The angel’s confident words “do not be afraid” and “nothing will be impossible with God” are addressed to us, too. In these fearful days, when even the most ordinary days seem filled with the possibilities of terror, when we wonder when, not if, when we will be victims of some dramatic tragedy, when we learn about disaster and crisis in every corner of the world almost instantaneously, when we are so easily turned against our common humanity because of our fears of things that are different or beyond our comprehension, when even the hopeful things of our lives can lead us to live in fear, the angel’s words to Mary should give us comfort. We do not have to be paralyzed by uncertainty, torn apart by anxiety, forced to live in fear and paranoia, or left wondering what will happen to us. In the light of Mary’s encounter with the angel, we can instead be confident that God’s presence will sustain us on our ordinary and extraordinary days. Even the transformation that we so desperately need and that seems so impossible to attain will not be impossible with God.

Mary’s changed life continued as she set out to meet her cousin Elizabeth. The angel had told her that Elizabeth was also experiencing the unexpected gift of a child, and so she set out to share these days with her relative. When she arrived, their joyous meeting reflected the new ordinary for both of them. They were filled with hope and wonder at the new lives that they were bearing into the world, and there was something incredible about sharing it together.

As their joy and hope met, they both broke into song. Elizabeth celebrated the gift of encountering this woman who would bear such a life into the world. Her son, still in her womb, leaped for joy as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, and they were all filled with the blessing of God as they shared this time.

Then Mary offered up her own words of praise in the incredible words that have come to be known as the Magnificat. Her rejoicing was directly addressed to God who made all these things possible, who lifted up this lowly, ordinary servant, showered great blessing upon her, and showed the wonder of God’s name in these acts. She rejoiced that God was doing a new thing in and through her to transform the world, showing strength and power and might over against the seemingly powerful persons of the world, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry, sending the rich away empty, and helping God’s people by showing the depths of mercy and hope from generation to generation.

We can know these depths of mercy and hope in our own generation, too. We can walk together with our sisters and brothers in faith and life as Mary and Elizabeth did to find the hope that we need in our ordinary and extraordinary days. When we are overcome by fear and uncertainty, we can come together to find support for the journey. When we are tempted to retreat to our own corners of life and separate ourselves from others, we are reminded that we are better together. And when there is cause for rejoicing in our lives, there is no better way to do it than to share such a moment with others.

We can join Elizabeth and Mary in songs of praise to God of our own. When our world leaves us wondering how we might begin to offer thanks, we can still offer our cries for a different way. When we cry out in this way for God’s transformation to take hold, we praise God for the ways in which things have changed before and show the depth of our faith and hope that these things can and will take place again. And as our experiences bring songs of praise, we join our voices with Elizabeth and Mary and so many other generations, celebrating the ways that God has been at work in our midst even as we look for all things to be possible in God’s gift of the days ahead and work to set aside our fears so that we can fully participate in God’s new creation as it comes into our midst.

So as we journey through these Advent days, may we trust that the angel who spoke to Mary speaks also to us on our most ordinary and most extraordinary days, inviting us to set aside our fears and trust that nothing will be impossible with God, so that we might share in the wonder and hope that comes to us in the birth, life, death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus Christ until he comes again to make us and all things new. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

Our Song of Joy

November 15, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on 1 Samuel 1:4-20; 2:1-10
preached on November 15, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

It could have been the middle of the summer, but the days were dark and gloomy in Israel. The governmental structures to lead and guide the people had broken down, the religious institutions had become more focused on self-preservation than anything else, and the threats from the outside were as strong as ever.

It was not a time for singing songs of joy of any sort, especially not for Hannah. Beyond the struggles of the world around her, she bore the great weight of being childless. She had a faithful and loving husband who cared for her quite well, but the world around her demanded that she have a child of her own in order to be fully human. One truly inconsiderate person kept bugging her about it over and over again, and she entered a deep depression. Not even the gentle and loving presence of her husband—or extra gifts from him!—could comfort her.

She finally went up to the temple to pray. “O Lord, look on me! See my misery, and do not forget me. Give me a son, and I will offer him to be your faithful servant even from the first days of his life.” She continued in prayer, her words emerging silently from her heart with such great longing that she could not help but mouth the words. She sought a way out of her predicament, a new possibility for her life in those dark days, a chance to sing a song of joy for herself and for the world.

We know what it is like to be Hannah. Our pain and hurt may not be exactly the same as hers—we may not struggle with the same issues of being barren in a culture where bearing children was central—but we certainly know what it is like to struggle to sing songs of joy. When the world seems to be breaking down around us, when violence and terror strike so often, when friends and family die before their time, when we become paralyzed with fear, we join Hannah in those heartfelt prayers that things will be different, that the darkness will end, that the world will come together, that joy can be our song.

Hannah walked away from her prayer at the temple with uncertainty and confusion. She didn’t really know what to expect in response. Would God grant her petition? Would God give her a son that she would then give back to God as she had promised? Even the priest at the temple had confronted her while she was praying, concerned that her heartfelt prayers were an expression not of her strong spirit but rather some strong wine! When Hannah explained her anxiety and vexation to him, he sent her on her way with his own prayer that God would grant her petition. When Hannah returned home, her mind was more at ease. Something was changing. She and her husband soon conceived a son, and when he was born, she named him Samuel. Hannah could finally make joy her song.

Hannah raised her voice after Samuel’s birth to offer the song of joy and praise that concludes our reading this morning. She began by offering praise to God for the particular gift she has received—“My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God,” she exclaims—but her thanksgiving for the presence of God in her own life was only the beginning. Hannah moved beyond her own life to lift up words of praise for all that God does in the world to make things different and new and to show God’s way of peace, justice, and wholeness to all. “The bows of the mighty are broken… those who were hungry are fat with spoil… the barren has borne seven… the LORD raises up the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.”

In her song, Hannah praised God for her gifts but made it clear that God was and is doing so much more beyond her, bringing justice for all people and offering a new way of life to the world, with a particular preference for those who are poor or in need. She sang because new life had emerged out of what seemed to be her barren womb—and because God continues to bring new life in all places that seem so barren and empty. Hannah responded with this song of joy because she had been a beneficiary of this incredible love, and her song expressed her deep gratitude for this incredible gift of a son and for God’s amazing power that is making all things new. Because of the blessings she received, because of God’s incredible work in the world, and because of God’s new thing that begins anew each and every day, Hannah made joy her song.

Even with the distance of several millennia, we too have the gift of sharing this song in our world and our lives. Amid the difficulty and challenge of our lives and our world, we can offer our praise to God as we see God’s presence revealed in new and deeper ways. Hannah’s song has been the model for countless others over the ages, most notably Mary’s song of praise as she fully embraced the gift that would come to her in being the mother of Jesus, and it can give us a basis for our praise, too. Just like Hannah, we too have had moments of incredible joy and blessing in our lives. We too have known God’s gracious and merciful response to our prayers. We too have seen God doing incredible things beyond our lives in all the world. And we too can sing a song of praise for God’s new thing beginning anew each and every day.

Our songs of praise in this place are a great place to begin, but they truly are only the beginning, just as this song was for Hannah. She not only sang a beautiful song—she took incredible and faithful action in offering up Samuel to the service of God. Like Hannah, our songs of joy need more than beautiful and catchy melodies—God calls us to sing praise with our heart and soul and voice, with the whole of our being, with all the gifts that give us life and breath, so that all creation might join our praise.

In these days, as we prepare for a new calendar year and bring a request for your support of the church in the next twelve months, I hope and pray that you will think of this as an opportunity for a joyous response. God is at work in our midst, and we have the gift of offering our response of joy and praise, not just in our words and songs and prayers here on Sundays but also in the gifts of time, talent, and money that support what God is doing in this place. Like Hannah, we begin our response with prayer for those things that so often seem to be missing from this journey of life together. We long for others to join us on this journey. We long for an end to the violence and strife that mark our world and occupy our attention. We long to be freed from worry about the mechanics of our life together. And we long for God’s new way to take more complete root in our midst.

Still, this is only the beginning of our response, for our prayers of deep longing soon turn to joy amid the great gifts that we have been given and are even more privileged to share. As we join in mission and ministry in this community and around our world, our joyful and faithful response empowers the church to bear witness to God’s love in so many times and places that go far beyond our imagination. And as we walk together, we find incredible signs of what God is doing in us and in our world to make all things new—and the astounding possibilities for where God invites us to join in!

The incredible thing about Hannah’s song —and our song of response—is that God uses these words of praise as a beginning for something new and something more. Just as Hannah offered the exultation of her heart, strength, and mouth, God works in and through the incredible gifts of our time, talent, and treasure to make all things new. God takes the little gifts we offer and expands them into something more. God joins our songs of praise in so many varied forms with those of others around us to continue the incredible things that God is doing in the world. In the coming week, you’ll hear a bit more about this story in your mailbox, about how you can join in Hannah’s song of joy and hope in our life together, and you’ll also receive a pledge card asking for you to consider what you can offer as part of a commitment to our song of joy and praise in this place.

As we consider our response to all these gifts and our commitment to our life together in this place over the coming year, may God give us strength to join with Hannah, Mary, and countless others across the ages, lifting our song of joy, thanksgiving, and praise for all that God has done and is doing in us and in our world to make all things new. Lord, come quickly! Amen.

Joy for the Journey

December 15, 2013 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:46-55 for the Third Sunday of Advent
preached on December 15, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

(This sermon begins with a wonderful video from Holy Moly! telling the story of Mary and Elizabeth. Due to copyright restrictions, I cannot show it here, but I nonetheless highly recommend it!)

I simply love this telling of this wonderful story of Mary and Elizabeth. It’s from the series that our children started using this fall in Sunday School called “Holy Moly!” that uses humor and animation—and surprising splashes of color—to tell familiar and formative stories of the Bible. I’ve heard some incredible musical settings of this story over the years, but there was something particularly special to me about this one. Maybe it was Mary’s journey from uncertainty to rejoicing that was so simply yet beautifully depicted. Maybe it was Elizabeth’s reaction to Mary’s arrival, her recognition of the spread of this child’s wonder across the whole earth even before his birth. Maybe it was the babies’ seeming recognition that something special was going on. Maybe it was Mary’s response of confidence amidst the criticism that she received from those she passed along the road. Or maybe it was the incredible color bursting into the land around Mary on her journey back home, echoing so beautifully the prophet’s promise that we heard in our reading from Isaiah this morning:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.

Whatever the reason for my love of this brief movie, ultimately I found it deeply compelling because of how beautifully it lifts up the theme of joy. Today, the third Sunday of Advent, is Gaudete Sunday. This Latin word for “rejoice” is the first word of one of the traditional lectionary readings for this day from Philippians—“Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice”—and so this whole Sunday has taken up this theme of rejoicing, from the celebratory music that means that we are getting very close to Christmas to our scripture readings that celebrate joy and even to the pink candle that symbolizes not Mary’s secret wish for a girl for her first child but rather the level of rejoicing that comes for all through the birth of this amazing child. Amidst all the darkness of our world, amidst all the gun violence, all the cold weather and snow and slush and gray days, amidst all the homelessness, all the pain, all the holiday blues, amidst all the brokenness, all the war and conflict, all the things that separate us from God and one another, amidst all the places where God’s presence seems so far away, there is still a light of joy because God is stepping in to make all things new in Jesus Christ.

That’s ultimately the point of this story of Mary and Elizabeth. These two women didn’t understand why—or especially even how!—they were pregnant.Mary was still a virgin, and Elizabeth was well beyond childbearing age. They were the subject of constant scorn and sadness from their friends and family and especially from those who didn’t know them. And in the face of all this external pressure they were enduring the usual pains and struggles of pregnancy in a time when the safety of mother and child were far less certain. Yet they still found reason to rejoice together, to look beyond the uncertainties and pain of their present circumstance to a time when God’s new life would be full and complete in the world. They found reason to share the joy that was promised to them in these children who were growing inside them. They recognized that what they were experiencing would not only be a gift to them and their families but to all people everywhere, so they could do nothing less than celebrate the incredible and transformative presence of God in the midst of this wonder in their lives and their world.

We may not have the kind of gift that Mary and Elizabeth shared that brought them to rejoice in this way, but as we make our way to God’s holy mountain along the journey of Advent, we too are called to look for places to rejoice as they did. People in this day and age aren’t as good at rejoicing as we might think. Most of my friends are as likely to throw a party to forget their troubles as they are to celebrate something good. Many of us are taught from an early age that we must be careful how and when we show off our achievements so that we can demonstrate proper humility and grace, stifling our joy for these good things in our lives. And it is too often the norm that one of us feels the need to hold back good news to avoid offending someone else.

Yet this song of Mary’s joy in our reading from Luke today tells us that our rejoicing is good and proper and right, not just because there is something good happening to her, but because there is good news for all creation that all things will be made new again. In Mary’s song, we see the amazing reality that rejoicing can change the world when God is at work in places near and far, when the hungry are filled with good things, when the powerful are set aside so that God’s power can shine through, when God’s mercy can be the driving force behind all good things, when the world can be turned upside down to make room for God to be at work making all things new.

As we join in this journey of Advent to this high and holy place on the mountain of God, as we set forth in these final days toward Christmas to remember the wondrous gift of God in Christ that comes to us, as we look for God’s new thing to become real in our world, too, I believe that we are called to open our eyes in new ways to God’s joyous work, to sort out how we can offer our own song proclaiming God’s justice and mercy, and to raise our voices with a joyful shout of thanksgiving and praise for the greatness and mercy of God who comes to us in Jesus at Christmas and who promises to come again to make all things new.

May our lives be songs of rejoicing for this new thing until all things are made new in Christ Jesus our Lord! Lord, come quickly! Amen.

Speaking Up and Singing Out

December 23, 2012 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:26-56 for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
preached on December 23, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Music is an integral part of this time of year. We’ve been hearing holiday songs for most of this month already if not longer, and there is incredible variety in style and subject. Nearly every popular music artist makes an album of holiday songs, but the subjects of holiday songs stay pretty much the same. The secular songs talk about winter, cold weather, snow, family, and friends, and the religious ones tell popularized and shortened versions of the various Christmas stories from the Bible along with some material from legends and history.

One of the greatest and most common subjects of these songs is Mary, who is also the main subject of our reading this morning. While we may not hear these songs quite so frequently on the radio, these songs about Mary are some of the best holiday music out there, if you ask me. They take a lot of different forms and focus on many different parts of the story. A lot of these songs are settings of the Magnificat that we just heard read and will sing ourselves in a few minutes, and at our Taizé prayer service the other night, we sang another very simple setting of it that managed to show the spirit of joy in Mary’s song in only a couple lines. Other songs about Mary simply attempt to tell the story of how Jesus came to be born, like a well-known carol from France that tells the story of Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel or the song I just sang by John Bell from the Iona Community in Scotland. Still other songs reflect on Mary’s reaction to the news that she would bear God’s son, with one I heard this year even taking a very earthy view of Mary’s encounter with the angel as it depicts in word and song the strangeness of this very intimate encounter between an angel and a young girl.

But as much as I love all this music about Mary, this year I have realized more than ever before how difficult it is for me to identify with Mary. I haven’t been visited by an angel, so I can’t know what it was like for her to experience Gabriel’s presence as she did. I am not a parent, so I can’t go into Christmas drawing connections between the birth of my own children and the birth of Jesus. And since I am not a woman, I can’t imagine what it is like to carry new life of any sort into the world, let alone a son who would be so special and transformative!

With all these limitations, I think it is very easy for me to miss important things about this story—but all of us stand at a disadvantage here because this story has almost always been told through male eyes. The gospel writers were all men, and although Luke tells this story so beautifully, no man could fully capture the feelings and challenges of a story that is so closely connected to a woman’s experience.

We in the church have too often quieted the voice of women over the centuries. While there have been a number of notable women who have contributed their scholarship and spirituality to the life of the church, it has only been in the last one hundred years that women have been given voice in pulpits in many churches, and those who have a closer experience to this key figure of our faith remain locked out of leadership in so many traditions even today. There is something very much missing when half of the human race is not allowed to offer their own perspective on such an important moment in the story of our faith.

And yet amidst such quiet for women, Mary spoke up—even if we have to hear it through the voice of Luke. Mary spoke up when no one seemed to care, when she faced exclusion from society for getting pregnant before she was married, when her story of divine parenthood for her child just wasn’t believable. Mary spoke up not just to claim something for herself, not just to reclaim her personhood, not just to announce that she too had a voice, but Mary spoke up so that others might hear, so that others could understand what she was going through, so that others could join her in praising God for this new thing that was taking shape in her.

This wasn’t an easy thing for her to deal with in general, let alone for her to talk about—her acceptance of it wasn’t a given. God didn’t ask Mary to sign up for a special trip, give up an evening to go to a sales presentation, or even to make a big donation to a favorite charity. Instead, through the angel Gabriel, God asked Mary to give up nine months of a relatively normal life for the pain and struggle of pregnancy. God asked Mary to take on the responsibility of raising a son at a very young age when it wasn’t entirely clear if she would have to do so alone. God asked Mary to stake her reputation as a virtuous woman on a visitation from an angel that she alone witnessed and that others had no incentive to believe.

But the reality is that Mary didn’t have much else to give—or much else to lose. She herself points out her own lowliness, and it seems that there is not much else she could do to be a part of what God was doing in the world around her. Yet in spite of all the obstacles, all the pain, all the ridicule it could bring, she somehow welcomed the angel, listened carefully, and responded hopefully, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

But her acceptance was not the only way that she spoke up. As she sorted out what all these things meant and talked to her relative Elizabeth, another woman who faced pregnancy in an unusual circumstance, Mary suddenly figured it all out. In talking with Elizabeth, she moved from a meek moment of submission and acceptance to a joyous offering of praise and thanksgiving. As she recognized more of what this child would mean, she was ready to praise God, not just for the gift she had received but for this child who would change everything for everyone.

What is our Mary moment? What sort of request in our lives would bring us to wonder and reflect as she did? What could God ask of us—male or female, rich or poor, young or old—that would challenge us and bring us to this kind of new life? What would make us confront our fears and our challenges and speak up with a word of hope and praise?

Because as a man I can’t know the full meaning of what it would be to give up as much as Mary did, I suspect any comparison I might offer would fall a bit short of the incredible offering that she made. But the great medieval mystic Julian of Norwich wrote of what she learned through her own visions of Mary:

I was not taught to long to see her bodily presence whilst I am here, but [instead] the virtues of her blessed soul, her truth, her wisdom, her love, through which I am taught to know myself and reverently to fear my God.

Perhaps then our words and actions can live out this truth, wisdom, and love of Mary each and every day. We can join in Mary’s commitment to opening ourselves to God’s work in us just as she did—not just being virtuous but living in faithfulness, truth, peace, justice, and love with one another and modeling these things for our world so that God’s new way might take hold in our world. And we can offer our own words of praise for what God is doing in us and around us, for mercy that transforms lives and hearts, for strength that scatters the proud, brings down the powerful, and lifts up the lowly, for generosity that fills the hearts and minds and stomachs of those who are in need, and for promises kept that show us how God has been, is now, and always will be at work in our world.

So as we bring our preparations and waiting to a close and join in celebrating this Christmas, may we do our best to be like Mary, opening ourselves to whatever God may be asking of us, speaking up to call others to join in God’s transformation of our lives and our world, and singing out in joy for God’s wondrous gift of new life born in a manger some two millennia ago and taking hold in our hearts once again this Christmas.

Lord, come quickly! Amen.

The Message of the Angels

December 18, 2011 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:26-56 for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
preached on December 18, 2011, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Whenever angels appear on the scene, you know that God is up to something. Angel really don’t show up all that much in the Bible – the word “angel” only appears some 104 times in the Old Testament and 99 times in the New Testament – but when angels do appear, they are always bringing or bearing a message, and the message is always more important than the messenger.

In our scripture reading this morning, the messenger came to a young woman named Mary who lived in the hill country of Palestine under Roman rule over two thousand years ago. The message from God was as unusual as the recipient: this young woman was favored above all women and chosen to bear the Son of God, the one who would change things once and for all for the people of Israel and all the world.

Mary was stunned and confused by all this, so she asked the angel how this would happen. She was not naïve and understood that certain things were involved in bearing children, and she knew if this message were true lots of people would be asking lots of questions.

The angel answered her, promising that her pregnancy would come not by a usual human method but by the power of the Most High God. And this wasn’t all that God was up to in these days. Mary’s relative Elizabeth, well past childbearing age and long considered barren, was also expecting a son.

Mary wondered about all this, but somehow she accepted it, whether or not she had a choice, declaring, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

These days, we don’t see all that many angels, and I for one am pretty skeptical when anyone suggests that they have such direct contact with God and God’s message, because that message is usually less about what God is doing and more about what the individual wants to hear.

But the seeming absence of angels in our midst doesn’t mean that God has stopped working in our world or has no message for us anymore. We still find God speaking to us in the words of scripture as the Holy Spirit moves in the community of faith. We still find God speaking to us as we live this message out in our worship, study, and service together in the community of faith. We still find God speaking to us even as we are confronted with the challenges of living in a changed and changing world that doesn’t look like what we remember it being even a few years ago.

But the key thing for us – and for Mary – is how we respond to God’s message. What do we do when we are bowled over by a powerful and challenging call from God? How do we keep on the path that God intends when we hear something unexpected or unknown?

I think Mary could have responded to the angel’s message in one of two ways. She could have freaked out, doing everything possible to avoid the consequences of his words, working to undermine the angel’s message and the hope of her son not yet born, maybe even saying “no” to the angel.

But Mary did none of this. Instead, she welcomed the uncertainty and challenge of the angel’s message. She set aside her fears and anxiety and opened herself to the possibility, gift, and challenge of being the mother of a child who would transform the world.

Mary’s actions after all this were pretty remarkable, too. She decided not to be ashamed of this child being born out of wedlock, clearly conceived before her marriage to Joseph. For support she set out to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the relative whom the angel had mentioned in his message, who was also expecting an unexpected child. And together they rejoiced in the strange and wonderful gifts of God taking shape and form within their bodies.

During their time together, Mary broke forth into song, echoing her ancestor Hannah and offering the great words known for centuries as the Magnificat. In her song, Mary places the fullness of her joy in the gift of God given not just in her time but across the centuries. In her song, Mary claims the justice and mercy of God for all people. And in her song Mary points the way to a new way of life that her son Jesus would make possible as he came into the world.

All along the way, Mary responded to this strange, challenging, and wonderful message by recognizing that she could only begin to understand what God was doing in and through her life, and yet she had no choice but to offer her thanks and praise.

The message of God before us isn’t quite as clear as it was for Mary, but there are definitely things going on around us that we need to be listening for. Even amidst the economic and political challenges of these times in our world, God is speaking words of comfort and hope to all people – and invites us to join in. God continues to challenge us in the midst of the deep need of so many to embody God’s own attention to and concern for the poor and all who are vulnerable. God calls us to listen for the voices of those who are kept silent or ignored. And God invites us to dream and imagine that things can and will be different for us and all the world, that things don’t have to be returned to their previous state or the clock turned back to make them right but rather can be new and different and wonderful and good as God continues the work of the new creation in us and through us and all around us.

So how will we respond to the message of the angels that God sets before us in these days? Will we consider only the ways and paths that we have known in the past? Will we stay true only to where we have been before and open only to the possibilities that are comfortable and well-known? Will we cower in the corner in fear, unwilling to move anyplace new because we are afraid of losing the little that we have?

Or will we be open to the power of God moving in us here and now? Will we be open to God’s transformation of the gifts that we offer into something greater and better? Will we let God change us and our world to make room not just for the ways that we have known but for the ways that God intends for us and all creation?

Despite my skepticism, these days remind us that angels are still present and at work in our midst, still bearing God’s message to us, in us, and through us, still showing us that God is up to something in our world and in our lives, still inviting us to join in rejoicing because of what God is up to in our world.

In the familiar stories we will hear over the next week, these strange messengers from God keep speaking, bringing more good news not just for a few people but for all humanity, opening the way to transformation for our broken and fearful world, proclaiming hope and joy and peace and love for all people not just at Christmas but all year long.

So may the message of the angels be alive and well in these days, bringing us good news and helping us to respond in faithfulness and joy as we join in God’s good work that is not yet done in our midst.

Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.