Luke 1:39-55
A long time ago, in a culture far, far away, a mighty empire ruled all the known world. No one was safe. The roads and cities were overrun with legal thieves and local rogues who robbed the population blind. It was a time of great darkness. The people cried out to their God, “Give us your ear, O Shepherd of Israel. Restore us, O God of Jacob. Let your face shine through the darkness that we might be saved.” After years of pleading and centuries of being ignored, you won’t believe God’s Holy solution. Mary.
Roman Catholics have celebrated Mary ever since the Vatican declared itself the center of the religious universe. We Protestants have been a bit slow to get excited about her. Initially we believed Catholics worshiped Mary more than Jesus. This hampered our understanding of her. Then once we accepted Mary into our theological homes, we couldn’t help but treat her like a porcelain doll. This originated from a poor understanding of Luke’s gospel.
Mary lived in a culture where women had no status. Their primary role was to have babies and hope those babies were boys. Somebody forgot to remind Luke this was the way the universe was run. His gospel begins with an ancient barren woman and a soon to be pregnant virgin. Hard to imagine this was God’s plan to save the world.
Too often when we read the gospel of Luke we start with chapter two. We all know the story of a man and his pregnant wife traveling 60 miles by foot to pay taxes. Only a man could make this story up. They arrive in Bethlehem only to discover no rooms anywhere. The child ends up being born in a barn. That sounds awful, except we have sanitized the story to the point it seems like a most natural occurrence. No birth pains, a shepherd as the attending physician, and swaddling clothes gently wrapped around the new born. Our story concludes with Mary quietly sipping a scotch on the rocks thinking about the experience. No pain, no mess, and no cleaning up afterwards. Then to top it off the next day Joseph claimed Jesus as a tax deduction.
Let me invite you back into Luke’s original story. It begins with Elizabeth, a woman who had been trying to get pregnant her entire life. She had reached the age where most women were spoiling their grandchildren. Then out of the blue her husband Zechariah gets a visit from a celestial party with a heavenly proclamation. Immediately the couple started turning the sewing room into a nursery. Before you could say rabbit, Elizabeth was with child and could not contain her joy. Zechariah was literally speechless. After months of a one-sided conversation, Elizabeth was thrilled to receive a visit from her younger cousin and share the miraculous news. Here is where things really get weird.
“Elizabeth, I heard the good news.”
“Yes Mary. Who can explain the wonders of God?”
“You can say that again. Elizabeth you are not the only who has been blessed. I am also expecting.”
“God be praised! Who is the father?”
Mary smiled, “Who can explain the wonders of God?”
Two pregnant women, both believing they were touched by God, sat down to share a meal. To the rational or the faithless, this most assuredly was a feast of fools. And then things went completely out of control. In an explosion of gratefulness, Mary began to sing.
My soul magnifies the Lord.
God has blessed this lowly servant.
Generations from now people will call me blessed.
If Mary had stopped right there, things would have been just fine. How could anyone argue with her joy? She was about to have a son and the son was a gift from God. But this was not an ordinary baby shower. This was a feast of fools and this fool refused to be quiet. Mary continued.
God will scatter the proud.
God will bring down the powerful.
God will lift up the lowly.
God will fill the hungry.
God will send the rich away empty.
What on earth got into this girl? Mary sounds like Bernie Sanders railing against Wall Street. This isn’t the way Christmas was meant to be celebrated, or was it. The gospel of Luke was written to folks who had lost all hope. They were a collection of slaves and women who had been stripped of their dreams by an Empire that viewed them as less than human. They foolishly yearned to be impregnated by the grace and mercy of God.
I am not sure we react well to Christmas Day as a feast for fools. But what better way to celebrate the vision of Mary and the grace of God then by acting just a little bit foolish on the one day of the year when we are allowed to be bold enough to remember that at the wrong place, under the most precarious circumstance, Jesus was born.
A few years ago Deb and I drove to Columbia to be with Martina as she delivered our first granddaughter. Since Deb is wonderful with the boys and I do equally well with solitude, it was mutually decided she would entertain Andy and Austin while I waited outside the delivery room. When the glorious moment arrived, Zach rushed out to tell me Siddalee was fine but Martina was having an emergency procedure to stop some excess bleeding. Right on cue the nurse came through the door with my granddaughter. The nurse placed this delicate life into my hands I nodded to Zach to go to Martina. I would take care of the child.
Jesus, like all of us, was born powerless and dependent on the loving hands that held him. Jesus, like all of us, was born into a world where most folks were powerless and dependent on the hands that rejected them. Jesus was not among the powerful and was not born in germ free hospital. Jesus was born reliant on the whims of an exhausted teenager and a confused husband, Thanks be to God nothing in the world mattered to them except this child.
The absurdity of Christ’s birth, the absurdity of any birth, reflects the contradiction of our lives. We imagine we are so powerful, but compared to what. We imagine ourselves to be in complete charge of the universe, but we know better. Jesus, born in obscurity, knows the fears, knows the confusion, knows the insecurities of our world because Jesus was born into confusion, lived amidst insecurity, and died because he dared to care for the weak, and the wounded, and the broken, and the refugee.
Mary,
Sweet Mary,
Dangerous Mary,
Perhaps even Proud Mary still sings:
God will scatter the proud.
God will bring down the powerful.
God will lift up the lowly.
God will fill the hungry.
God will send the rich away empty.
Wow, that is a lot to swallow during this glorious season.
It’s Christmas, the day when God’s memory came alive.
It’s Christmas, the day when we celebrate a feast of fools. It’s Christmas, the day when the main item on the menu is the mercy and grace of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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