This Week: Advent 4B
Gospel: Luke 1:26-38
When we finally get to the fourth Sunday of Advent, we feel so close to Christmas. And as it occurs in 2023, we start Christmas Eve day doing Advent and end it doing Christmas.
Thankfully the gospel reading for this week helps us. The angel Gabriel comes to Mary, inviting this young woman to participate in the Incarnation event. It’s a story that is already Christmasy—and frequently finds its way into many Christmas pageants.
What draws my attention most in the text this year is how much of the talking comes from the angel and how little comes from Mary.
A recreated dialogue
The Angel greets her.
Mary: …
The Angel: Don’t worry, God thinks you’re awesome. You’re going to have a baby who you will name Jesus. Lots of messianic stuff and will be above everything.
Mary: I’m not sure how this is possible…
Angel: The Spirit’s got this. The baby will be way above you. And BTW, Elizabeth is six months’ pregnant and she’s not supposed to be able to have kids! That’s what God can do!
Mary: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your world.”
The Bigger Story
This exchange contrasts with the bookending story of Zechariah who doesn’t believe the angel’s claim that Elizabeth will become pregnant. These parallel stories don’t really deal with belief in the modern sense as much as they do trust. For Zechariah doesn’t say he isn’t down with what the angel says.
I suspect it is more about credulousness than anything. Zechariah has a vibe that leans not-so-sure and Mary is just confused. Which is what makes the angels’ responses feel more substantive than the contrast itself.
But by first placing an emphasis on trust rather than the more nebulous idea of “belief,” we can see that their concern isn’t with something intellectual, like our modern focus on doctrine. They aren’t trying to get Mary to believe in the idea of them.
It is more like trust in the possibility that God is doing something amazing. Not without hesitation, mind you. Mary has questions. But without skepticism that God could do something impossible.
Faith and Favor
This particular sense of faith in God—faith in God’s capacity and desire to do the impossible—feels like the foundational piece of the incarnation. At least in Luke’s telling through Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary.
The other striking theme in the bigger story at the end of Advent and into Christmas is the place of favor in the story. That Mary is surprised at God’s favor because she sees herself as lowly. Whether she is may, in fact, matter less than how she sees herself.
The evangelist is walking a delicate line in speaking of Mary’s station. For she is, at once, connected to the true royal line and also a lowly virgin. And regardless of how the birth story plays out (there is a lot of interpreting going on in how we read chapter 2), the angels appear to shepherds, among the lowest members of society.
As much as talk of class is often treated as gauche in many churches, the material of economically and socially stratified people is a huge part of the story. And it is Mary who first brings it up in the Magnificat.
Favor, as it is understood, is being turned on its head. God’s favor is no longer reflected in wealth, but in lowliness. And trust. God is trusting in Mary. God believes in her. Showing favor to her because she is the one God picks. And the angels are trusted with the Good News of the incarnate one—Jesus, the king.
Faith and favor mix. Faith in the lowly, entrusting the lowly, mutually creating the Incarnation, sharing the Good News. And then God is made manifest.