In almost every Disney princess movie, the princess (or, in some cases, princess-to-be) dreams of what her life will be like once she’s older, married, and living happily ever after. She has it all planned out; who she will marry, where they will live, how many children they’ll have… everything.
Now, maybe I’ve seen too many of those movies, but I imagine that Mary had similar dreams and plans. I imagine that she spent her time happily dreaming of what her life would be like once she married Joseph, to whom she was engaged.
Can’t you just picture her singing a song like the ones that appear at the start of so many of those movies, dreaming and imagining what her life might be like, how perfect it will be, once she and Joseph are able to get married? I know - Joseph was no prince, just a poor carpenter. But he was a prince to her. In her eyes, he was the carpenter prince of Nazareth!
So, in her mind at least, everything was all planned out. In her mind, everything was going according to plan. In her mind, everything was going to be perfect.
But then Gabriel - God’s messenger - appeared. Gabriel appeared to Mary, interrupted her daydreaming, and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you!”
But Mary (the scripture says) was much perplexed by his words, and wondered just what kind of greeting this might be.
She sensed that Gabriel posed a threat to the perfect plans she had made for her life. What did he want with her? Was he really a messenger from God? And when did a messenger from God ever appear to someone, and NOT completely interrupt the plans they had for their life?
No; Mary knew the stories. Everytime a messenger from God appeared to someone, that person’s life was drastically changed. An encounter like that always sent a person’s life on a whole, new, unexpected trajectory.
Which means Mary’s plans and dreams were about to be completely rewritten.
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.”
Well. That’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?
There was one thing in Gabriel’s announcement that stood out in Mary’s mind. And this one thing (it seemed to her) could be the one thing that would allow her to hold on to her hopes and dreams. This one thing could be the one thing that would allow her to avoid the future Gabriel just described.
Gabriel said that she would soon give birth to a child; yet Mary knew for a fact that she was not pregnant. It wasn’t possible. So maybe there was a mistake.
Mary said to Gabriel, “How can this be right? You see, I’m a virgin; I can’t be pregnant!”
But Gabriel said, basically, that God’s Spirit works in mysterious ways, and that nothing is impossible with God.
Now, people say that a lot - that nothing is impossible with God. And usually, when people say it, they say it as an expression of hope. As in, “hey, maybe I’ll win the lottery! Nothing is impossible with God!” or, “maybe I’ll pass Calculus. Nothing is impossible with God!” Or, “Perhaps there’s a chance that he’ll come out of his coma. Don’t lose hope, for nothing is impossible with God.” It’s a phrase spoken by people who are still holding on to hope.
I don’t know that Mary heard these words the same way. Maybe she did...or, maybe, when she heard Gabriel say that nothing is impossible with God, she lowered her head, and sighed, and closed her eyes, and watched all her dreams and plans float away… because then she knew for certain that what Gabriel said was true, that it would all come to pass, and that her life would not be the perfect, quiet, peaceful little life she had imagined.
I can’t be certain that these were the thoughts going through Mary’s head. But if they were, I can relate. I can relate to having everything perfectly planned out, only to have something come along and completely disrupt those plans.
Right? This story is our story. It’s the story of the moment we find ourselves in. It’s the story of the year 2020.
No matter what you had planned for this year, those plans had to be thrown out the window. No matter what you had dreamed for this year, you had to watch those dreams float away.
Were you planning on a big family vacation? Or the celebration of a big life event, like a graduation or anniversary? Did you expect you’d be able to meet up with your friends like you’ve always done, gathering together once a week in a bar or coffee shop? Or here, in this sanctuary?
What we’re living through now is not at all what we had hoped for or planned for.
The news that Mary received from Gabriel was good news for the world, but still, it was a major interruption for Mary. For her, this was an unplanned pregnancy, and unplanned pregnancies are an interruption. And not just any unplanned pregnancy; she was going to give birth to one who would change the world. There would be no quiet peaceful life, for her baby, or for her.
But she recognized that this was from God, and that it was not something she could fight against.
So after her confusion, her perplexity, her questions, the most she could do is respond, “Let it be. I am the servant of the Lord; let it be with me as you have said.”
I just finished reading a book by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson called Without Oars. In the prologue, the author explains where the title of the book came from…
In 891, “three Irish pilgrims, Dubslane, Macbeth, and Maelinmum, made the dramatic decision to set out into the ocean from their homeland ‘without oars.’”
Imagine that: casting off to sea, with no way to control which direction your boat is headed, but instead, relying on the wind, the “breath of God,” to guide you...
“They took provisions for seven days. On the seventh night they landed in Cornwall,...convinced that they were precisely where they were meant to be.”
To me, this sounds foolish. Who would willingly give up control of where their boat is headed? I like to be in control. I like to have things planned out, so I know what’s coming, so I can control which direction my life will take.
But sometimes, God teaches us that no matter how well we plan things out, we’re not always in control. Sometimes, life takes a dramatic turn in a direction we did not anticipate, a direction we did not desire; and we’re left with two choices: we can either fight against our new circumstances; or we can accept them, and say, “let it be.”
Now, this is where we need to be careful. There is a definite role for wisdom here. Plans are good. Fighting against evil is good. Doing all you can to bring justice and peace into the world is good.
But when you find yourself in a situation over which you have absolutely no control, fighting becomes futile. Like when you show up at the airport and discover that your flight has been canceled. Nothing you can say or do is going to change that. The best thing you can do in that case is to say, “let it be.”
“Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me as you have said.” I think what Mary is saying is, “The situation I now find myself in is not what I had planned. It’s not what I wanted. Not-yet-wed, yet pregnant; the mother-to-be of no ordinary child, but one whose life will be anything but normal…”
“OK. I accept this. I accept this change. I accept these new circumstances. I accept God’s will for my life. I’m throwing out my oars, and trusting in God’s Spirit to direct my life…. Let it be.”
In the prologue to his book, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson shared this quote by Soren Kierkegaard: “It is good once in a while to feel oneself in the hands of God, and not always eternally slinking around the familiar nooks and corners of a town where one always knows the way out.”
This Christmas, we find ourselves in a very unfamiliar town - and for much of this year, we have been in a place where we have not known the way out. We have not known the way forward. We have felt lost. Adrift. Without oars.
Yet even with all the unexpected turns our lives have taken this year, we have never not been in the hands of God.
As it says in Psalm 91: “For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”
And as it says in Isaiah 43: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”
And as it says in several books of the Bible: God will never leave you, forsake you, or abandon you.
Once the angel departed, Mary decided she needed to go visit her relative Elizabeth. The journey, and Elizabeth’s advice, helped put things in perspective for Mary. She had already accepted what was happening and what was going to happen; but now Mary was able to embrace her new circumstance and even find joy in it. She was able to see the bigger picture, and - more importantly - she was able to see God’s hand at work in all that was happening.
Finally, Mary was able to give praise to God. What was hard at first now came easy. She sang a song of praise to God that went like this:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.”
And in the second part of Mary’s song, listen how she takes great joy in the fact that God is not only disrupting her plans, but the plans of so many around the world. The status quo has been interrupted, and Mary realizes that’s a good thing...
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
I know that nothing in our lives right now is as we hoped, dreamed, or planned it would be. But if we can surrender ourselves to God, and say, as Mary said: “Let it be with me according to your word,” then we will discover God is present, God is with us, God is at work in our lives… and we will find joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment