Mary was in an impossible situation and it is the same situation that we are in, to bear Christ to the World. Thankfully, nothing is impossible with God.
Vicar Lauren Mildahl
Fourth Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Luke 1:46b-55, Luke 1:26-38
Greetings, favored ones, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Mary only asks one question.
Most people, I think, if they had been in Mary’s shoes, would have asked more questions. I certainly would have. I would have wanted to know at least a few more details about this crazy thing that was about to happen to me. But when Gabriel tells her she will bear the Christ, a baby she will name Jesus, the Son of the Most High, Mary only asks: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
And the common interpretation, when we hear this question, is that Mary is wondering about the biology of this whole thing. As if she was fixated on the clinical impossibilities of an immaculate conception. As if she’s asking, “Excuse me, Gabriel, can you explain exactly how this embryo will be fertilized? Where will the other half of this baby’s DNA come from? I need to know how this works, medically speaking.”
But what if that wasn’t what she was worried about?
What if she didn’t actually think it would be much of a miracle for the God who created everything that is out of the chaotic void, to manifest one more life. Maybe she didn’t think it would be a big deal for the God who breathes life into everything to breathe life into her womb. After all, she doesn’t sing, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God who miraculously impregnates!” She actually doesn’t mention that part in her song at all.
So maybe she was thinking about something else. Maybe when she asked her one question, “How can this be since I am a virgin?” she meant something more like, “Do you really know what you’re asking me?! I’m not married yet. Don’t you know how hard it is here for single mothers?”
Because she didn’t know, yet. She didn’t know that Joseph would step up and stick around, great guy, or that her relatives and her community would support their family. She didn’t know, yet, that complete strangers would show up with expensive gifts from the East!
At this point, all she knew for sure was that if she said yes, she might have to do this alone. And she knew what an impossible situation that might be.
And as if being a single mother weren’t hard enough, what about being a mother to God?!
Mary might well have been asking Gabriel, “Do you know what you are asking me? I don’t know how to raise a MESSIAH! I’m just a kid!” Because there she was, not all that far from childhood herself, just a poor girl from a small village, tasked to raise a king of whose kingdom there will be no end! A king to sit on David’s throne forever! A king who is GOD INCARNATE. Is there a person on Earth qualified for that?! How was she supposed to know what to do?
Another layer of impossible.
Or, you know, maybe Mary was just not sure she really wanted to bring a baby into this broken world.
She knew about thrones, about the mighty, and the proud, she did sing about them. And maybe in that first moment of contemplating motherhood, she just couldn’t fathom bringing any more life, any more precious and vulnerable and beloved life into this world that wasn’t yet put right. She was just a virgin, just an unmarried young woman living in an occupied nation, thoroughly and in every way cut off from political and economic power – how could she protect him?
Because even knowing that her baby boy was God incarnate, in this world not yet made right, she would have known what would happen to anybody who went around preaching possibility and hope, justice and redistribution, and all those things that might topple a tyrant. She might have guessed already that she would have to do the most impossible thing of all for a mother: watch her son die.
Let’s give Mary some credit.
And let’s imagine that she knew all the many dimensions of impossibility surrounding the scenario that Gabriel was presenting, and that maybe the part about the virgin pregnancy wasn’t even the top of the list. So she asks her one question, overwhelmed for a moment, by impossibility:
“How can this be?”
And I don’t blame her. It seems like a reasonable response to a unique and impossible task.
Although, it’s not truly unique at all, is it?
A young woman and an unplanned pregnancy? Not unique. Powerless and terrorized people longing for liberty and restoration? Not unique. Sinners and sinned against waiting for a savior? Not unique. This story repeats and echoes through the generations, in impossible situation after impossible situation. It repeats in us. Ordinary people, encountering the divine and answering the call to bear Christ into the world.
Because although we don’t have the same physical experience that Mary had, our calling is the same.
We are all called to bear Christ, to experience divine love growing within ourselves, to labor and birth Christ anew again and again for the world.
We bear Christ so that every single person can know that they are favored and completely loved by God.
We bear Christ so that God’s justice can be accomplished, so that the mighty may be cast down, the proud may be scattered, the rich may be sent away empty. So that every unjust social structure built on oppression and exploitation and violence can be overturned, by the strength of God’s arm.
We bear Christ so that all life can flourish. That the lowly may be lifted up, that the hungry may be filled with good things. So that every single person can be fed and housed and cared for and welcomed.
And you know what? That can feel pretty impossible sometimes. Overwhelmed, we also might want to respond with just one question of our own: How can this be, God? How can we do all the things you call us to do?
And then Gabriel’s words echo through the centuries, answering not just Mary’s question, but our own desperate wonderings.
The angel said: “Nothing is impossible with God.”
Nothing will stand in the way between God and us. Not the powers of this world, not our own inadequacies and certainly not biology. God will go over or around or under or straight through any obstacle to save us.
And every impossible situation you can think of, any impossible situation that you may be facing right now, God is already there. The tenderness of Divine Love is already there, turning impossible into possible.
God is in the business of possible, of new beginnings, new life, ways from no way. In a word, hope. After all, what is hope, if not possibility? When we are called to bear Christ we are sharing a future pregnant with possibility! It is not easy (pregnancy and labor aren’t easy), but it is never impossible.
With God, nothing is impossible.
This was the only answer Mary needed to her question.
“Here am I,” she says, “the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
And then she sings. The song that echoes through every Christ bearer and that is our song too:
Our souls proclaim the greatness of our Lord!
And our spirits rejoice in God our Savior!
Our God of infinite possibility. Thanks be to God!
In the name of the Father, of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
