What were you doing when you were 15 years old? What was your life like way back then? I took a trip down memory lane by Googling events in 1976. Besides the celebration of the United States Bicentennial, other happenings included Ted Turner purchasing the Atlanta Braves for $12 million; the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, with Dorothy Hamill winning gold in the women’s figure skating competition; Pittsburgh defeating Dallas in the Super Bowl, with Lynn Swann winning the MVP award; courts ruling that Karen Ann Quinlan could be removed from life support; the founding of Apple Computer and the release of the Apple 1; Barbara Walters becoming the first woman to take over as a network nightly news anchor; Paul Harvey beginning his radio show, “The Rest of the Story”; the first commercial SST flight to North America on the Con-corde; the first woman to be admitted to the Air Force Academy; the Episcopal Church voting to ordain women as priests and bishops; Tommy Lasorda becoming manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers; the Cincinnati Reds sweeping the New York Yankees in the World Series, with Johnny Bench winning MVP honors; Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley becoming news anchors on “The Today Show”; Tony Dorsett winning the Heisman trophy; Jimmy Carter being elected President, defeating incumbent Gerald Ford; Joe Namath playing his last game as a New York Jet; Chris Evert and Bjorn Borg winning at Wimbledon; the Montreal Summer Olympics, with Nadia Comaneci receiving the first perfect 10 score in gymnastics and Bruce Jenner winning gold in the decathlon; Hank Aaron hitting his 755th home run; and the U.S. Open tennis championship, with Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors taking home the winning trophies.
I was probably watching a lot of television. I remember “The Bionic Woman,” “Donny and Marie,” “Laverne and Shirley,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Gong Show,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Alice,” “Wonder Woman,” “Family Feud” with Richard Dawson as host, and “The Muppet Show.” If I was listening to music, it was usually John Denver, The Captain and Tenille, Barry Manilow, the Osmonds, and the Carpenters.
The last thing I would have imagined for myself at age 15 would be to become a mother. But that’s what happened to Mary, the main character in our scripture reading for today. She was possibly even younger than 15 when she was betrothed to Joseph. Jorge Aquino, a professor of religion at the University of San Francisco, wrote, “She is a little girl in what was surely a man’s world, an impoverished nobody with nothing of importance to say .. the last thing she expects to receive is a visitation from an angel, particularly one greeting her as though she were a princess.” But that’s exactly what happened to her. And that angelic visitation changed her life.
We don’t know a lot about Mary. She is only mentioned a few times in the Gospels and once in Acts. We read about her here in Luke and in Matthew 1-2 around the birth narratives of Jesus and in the story of Jesus becoming separated from them in Jerusalem at age 12 and her finding him in the Temple with the priests. There is the story of Jesus’s first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana at the urging of his mother. In Luke 8, we read that his mother and brothers came to Jesus but were unable to reach him because of the crowd. When he was told of their presence, Jesus’s response was, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” And then we find Mary at the foot of the cross where Jesus died, hearing him commend her to the care of his disciple, John. And finally, Mary is mentioned as being present with the disciples after Jesus ascended into heaven.
Perhaps because we have so few facts about Mary, she is seen differently by different people. James R. Luck, Jr., a UCC ministry specialist in North Carolina, wrote, “Antifeminists hold her up as a model of the obedient woman who embraces her ‘rightful’ place in the family. Feminists champion this strong woman who needed not a man in her life. Greek and Russian Orthodox believers adore her as the theotokos, the God-bearer. Secularists mock her as a symbol of the irrationality and antiquity of Chrisitan thinking. Catholics exalt her as the Queen of Heaven, while Hallmark romanticizes her and the U.S. Postal Service puts her on Christmas stamps. Then there are the Protestants who argue about whether she is a heavenly intercessor, …whether she remained a virgin, and whether she was immaculately conceived and therefore born without sin. Too frequently we ignore or minimize her, making her a porcelain figure in our creche: fragile, breakable, and boxed away for most of the year.”
What we do know is that Mary was a girl living in the small town of Nazareth and that she was engaged to be married to Joseph, a carpenter. Most likely, Joseph was much older than Mary, perhaps in his 30s. The marriage would have been arranged by their parents. She was an ordinary woman in an ordinary village, engaged to an ordinary man and expecting to live an ordinary life. But all of that changed when Mary had an encounter with an angel.
We are told that this happened in the sixth month; that doesn’t refer to the sixth month of the year, but the sixth month of the pregnancy of Mary’s relative, Elizabeth, who was going to give birth to John. God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth in Galilee to this virgin named Mary who was engaged to be married to Joseph. You might remember from last week that Gabriel was one of the archangels and most often is seen in the Bible as a messenger from God.
Gabriel meets Mary with the words, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” It sounds like the opening of a draft notice, and in some ways it was. Because Gabriel came to tell Mary that God had chosen her for a special role. Mary was “greatly troubled” at the words of the angel, and she wondered what kind of greeting this was. Like everyone who was visited by an angel, Mary was startled and afraid. But Gabriel reassured her with the words, “Do not be afraid. You have found favor with God.” Well, that sounds promising!
Then Gabriel went on to explain what that was going to mean. God had chosen her to carry his child, a boy who was to be called Jesus. This child would be the Son of God. And he would grow up to reign on the throne of David over the house of Jacob forever. Indeed, his kingdom would never end. If Mary was troubled by the angel’s greeting, just imagine how troubled she would be by this announcement! And she questioned him, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” Gabriel told her that it would be the result of a mysterious miracle, whereby the Holy Spirit would come over her and the power of God would overwhelm her and she would become pregnant with the Son of God. He also told her that Elizabeth was pregnant in her old age and was in her sixth month. Then he ended by saying, “Nothing is impossible with God.”
I have to believe that Mary had the option of saying “No” to the angel’s message. She could have refused to go through with it. After all, this was not an easy thing that was being asked of her. First of all, consider the responsibility of knowing you were going to give birth to God’s Son and then raise him up as his mother. How would one prepare to be that kind of mother? How afraid would Mary be of making mistakes in his upbringing? And then there was the problem of explaining this mysterious pregnancy to her family and to Joseph. How would she convince them that the child was God’s Son? That she had not been unfaithful to Joseph with another man?
But what Mary said was, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” What an act of courage and faith! I don’t hear this as a meek and mild and hesitant submission to God’s will, but as a confident agreement to taking on the responsibility that God would place on her. She was humble, but she was also brave. Mary said “Yes” to God and trusted that all the rest of it would work out somehow. Perhaps she even felt, not exactly proud, but wonderfully surprised that God had chosen her for this incredible duty. God must have seen something in Mary that told him she would be the perfect mother for his child. He was willing to entrust his greatest gift to human beings to this young woman, and I am sure that he saw in her character the qualities it would take to carry out her calling.
So what does an angelic appearance to Mary have to do with us here and now? I think there are a few things we might consider.
First, if God would choose a young woman of simple status from a small town of no real significance to be the mother of his child, then surely God can use any of us to do his will in our time. We are all capable of doing something for God. It will not be the same calling for every person; we have different spiritual gifts and talents that God can use for his purposes. Throughout the Biblical story, God consistently chose ordinary and even flawed people to do his work. Think about Moses, who stuttered and suffered from a lack of self-confidence, but who confronted pharaoh and led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt; or David, who was just a boy but stood up to the giant Goliath with a sling and a few stones; or Esther, who was a Jew living in exile but became a queen in the perfect position to save her people; or Ruth, who lived with her mother-in-law and survived by gleaning wheat, but who married Boaz and became an ancestor of Jesus; or Matthew, who was a tax collector, but who became a trusted apostle of Jesus; and Peter, who was an ordinary fisherman who had a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, but who received the Holy Spirit and preached a sermon that led to thousands of people becoming followers of Jesus. No matter who you are or what you can do or what you can’t do, God can use you. God isn’t that concerned about your ability; he is looking for your availability.
Second, I think that Mary was willing to begin a journey that would be anything but ordinary when she agreed to God’s plan for her life. She began a great adventure that was unlike anything she might have imagined before she met the angel. There would be great joys and great pains along the way, loss that was unimaginable and victory that was miraculous. But the whole thing, I believe Mary would say, was worth it in the end. She wouldn’t have changed a thing on her journey with Jesus. We can live our own adventure when we say “yes” to God. Even when what God asks seems too much for us, even when it sounds crazy, when we embrace our calling God will provide what we need for the road ahead. Life will be anything but boring if we walk where God leads us. We have to be open to the adventure, to the unknown, to the moving of God’s Spirit. We have to take chances and be willing to accept risks. But the end result will be worth it.
There may be a message from God in your heart right now that calls you to something that might be uncomfortable, challenging, daunting even. Maybe you have put off answering God because you are afraid. I want to encourage you to say “yes” to God this morning. Whatever God is calling you to do, let go of your fear and your questions and your doubts, and just say “yes.” Step out in faith. Because God will direct your feet along the right path towards the adventure he has in mind for you. Your life will never be the same. And, like Mary, you just might give birth to something that will transform the world.
