Pentecost is our Annunciation, your call to let the Spirit fill you and transform you for the healing of the world.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord
Text: Luke 1:46-55
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Pentecost is our Annunciation. It’s that simple.
Today we learn to model Mary, not worship her. Mary stands alongside us, urging us to join her in answering God’s invitation. To join her willingness to open herself completely to God’s work, even if it meant her world turned upside down. To say with her “let it be so,” and let God’s Spirit transform us for the life of the world.
Sharing Mary’s “yes” means letting down all sorts of boundaries with God.
And maybe only a pregnant woman can show us this. From the moment of conception, a pregnant mother shares her body with another being. There isn’t a breath taken that isn’t shared. Blood runs between the two. Food eaten, physical movement, all affect both. There’s distinction between the two, but the boundaries seem nearly transparent.
This is what God asked of Mary: to let down all boundaries and join with God for the healing of the world. To say, “let it be as you will,” and let God into her life wherever God needed to be.
And as much as we desire God’s presence in our lives, God’s grace in our hearts, there are some places inside our hearts with a “no admittance” sign, places where we say to God, “this far, and no further.” Where we say:
I don’t want you to challenge my preconception, my way of thinking. It’s mine to keep. OR
I don’t want you to prod at that sin, that habit that hurts me and others. It’s comfortable to me. OR
I’m not ready for you to change me fully into Christ, to set aside my needs. I like being number one in my plans. OR
I don’t want you to open my heart fully to love you and love others. That vulnerability terrifies me. I’d rather limit my love, protect myself.
And God will let you give these answers. You, like Mary, can always say no.
But if God allows your “no,” what does that suggest about the Magnificat?
This powerful, brave, joyful song to God’s overturning of the world pours out of this young woman and still thrills us. God will cast down the mighty from their thrones. God will send the rich away empty and scatter the proud. God will lift up the lowly, fill the hungry with good things. God will bring healing and wholeness to the entire creation.
But if God inspires this song by inviting a teenage girl to bear Christ into the world, and if God waits for her “yes” before proceeding, that surely means this is how God will fulfill Magnificat’s promise with us, with you.
Mary, who wasn’t forced into “yes,” couldn’t sing a song about God forcing anyone else, either. When Mary’s child grew to an adult, Jesus invited people into the reign of God, called people to lose everything to find God’s life. The Son of God was so committed to not forcing humanity to follow, so committed to invitation rather than coercion, that he let us torture and kill him, rather than take up force against us.
So the Magnificat can’t be a manifesto for God’s forcing the world upside down. God’s approach to Mary, the Son of God’s consistent approach in preaching and teaching, dying and rising, declare this is also the only way God will accomplish Magnificat’s promise. Through you, and me, and all God’s children, saying “yes, let it be as you say, as you ask.”
We who are mighty, powerful, aren’t threatened to comply by God’s armies.
We’re invited by God’s sacrificial love to step down from our thrones of privilege and lift up those who are trodden down. We who are full, rich, sated with plenty, are invited to empty ourselves, to step away from the buffet table, so that all can feast, all are fed and housed and clothed. We who are proud, self-centered, who act consciously and unconsciously more out of self-interest than we care to admit, are invited to scatter all that pride, let go of all those self-satisfied thoughts. So we can truly become Christ.
This won’t be easy. Mary’s “yes” led her to great joys, but also pain and suffering. Dropping all boundaries and letting God enter in, for the healing of our world, for the healing of our own lives, always has cost, loss, risk. Mary’s “yes” led her to the foot of the cross where she saw her son brutally killed. A world turned upside down means we move down so that all might live.
But Mary’s path didn’t end at that cross.
She was there in those confusing, glorious days after Easter, able to take her beloved son into her arms again. She saw him ascend to his divine life. And she was there with about 120 women and men on that day, fifty days after he rose, when the Triune God came to all the believers in the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit, asking the same question Gabriel asked Mary. When the Annunciation came for the whole Church, when believers were invited to welcome the Holy Spirit into their hearts and lives, to drop all boundaries, to join with God, bearing Christ for the healing of the world.
Pentecost is your Annunciation. The Spirit will enter you, change you, when you say yes, and you will be richly blessed and become a blessing to the world. A part of God’s Magnificat overturning. Whatever you let go, whatever you’re asked to lose, you’ll realize they’re nothing compared to the joy of bearing Christ. You’ll find life and love in God’s heart on this path.
And Mary will walk alongside you, holding out her hand, saying, “All will be well. Come, let’s walk together.”
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
