Hail Mary (Advent4B sermon 20171224)

Luke 1:26-38

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.

In the sixth month God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth in Galilee, to Mary, a παρθένος espoused to Joseph ben-David. "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus."

It’s about Mary, isn’t it, Mary Sunday: the elevation of this plain and simple, naive, innocent, humble, trusting - - pregnant but unmarried Galilean παρθένος (the Greek word both Luke and Matthew gleaned from Isaiah 7:14) - - in Isaiah’s Hebrew הָעַלְמָ֗ה -ha-almah, a maiden, a ripe young woman, a new bride; but in the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek language translation of the Hebrew Bible, παρθένος, a maiden, even a virgin - - Mary’s elevation to Mother of God, Queen of Heaven signifies that God loves even the least of us; or more, that God loves precisely the least of us - - you, even you, God loves you, and there’s not a thing you can do about it. Even the Bread given you at the Altar this morning means “God loves you.”

The divine love story is the gospel of Christmas & Easter - - Christmas that God comes because God loves you and longs to be Immanuel, God with you - - Easter that God returns lovingly in love: that throughout Salvation History regardless how you treat God, God never gives up on you.

So, Mary stories: mixing canonical gospels -- at Christmas the Luke and Matthew Nativity stories - - the church remembers ~

that Mary consented to the blatant sin of unwed pregnancy, a capital crime,
how Mary loved and protected her son,
Mary’s agonizing grief as we brutalized and tortured him to death,
Mary, as Jesus’ torn and ravished body is taken down from the Cross and laid in his Mother’s arms.

There are beautiful stories as well as tragic, mysterious:

the mystical visits of the angel Gabriel to Mary and to Joseph,
the multitude of heavenly host in the night sky,
the visit of the Magi, the Wise Men,
that day in the Temple when Mary was troubled, shaken, as Simeon prophesied, “a sword shall pierce your very soul.”
the flight to Egypt to escape Herod’s murderous jealousy,
the moment when, from the Cross, Jesus handed Mary over to the Beloved Disciple to love as his own mother, and to be her son, as indeed we are all Mary’s children.

The moment is near, Advent: he comes at last. In a world that we have made cold and hateful, something happens in the darkness: heaven breaks through the night sky, and suddenly all the Mary stories are about you. And because of what the Holy Mother has done, peace comes, and blessed assurance. If only for the moment, the Peace of God comes. Though human cruelty takes Jesus from Mary, Time gives Jesus to you, into your care, to love and to become, as his disciple in baptism. We are baptized into the Way of the Cross, the Kingdom of God here on earth - - because God loves you - - loves you equally and fully as God loves Jesus the Son. That love of God calls you profoundly to Jesus, not to the foot of his Cross, but onto the Cross with Jesus, God loves you that much. When the Advent Mystery is unsealed, this is the “Why?” of Christmas, that loving even you, God calls you to become all that Jesus is, yourself as fully a child of God as the child in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger, Jesus of Bethlehem and Calvary.

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Wonderful things will happen this evening as we hear again the story of God’s love for us, shepherds in the fields, sore afraid as the night sky fills with angels proclaiming “Glory to God in the highest,” and we gather round a manger to behold God’s glory: a human child, in the Divine Image just as you are, because God loves you.

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to thy word.”

Holy Mary, Mother of God, we praise you and we bless you; because by your Holy Child you give us the Manger and the Cross.

Advent 4B sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Sunday, 24 December 2017, the Rev. Tom Weller. Published only to keep a promise.