Luke 1:26-38

The Fourth Sunday in Advent | 24 December 2023 | Luke 1:26-38 | Paul Bieber |

Luke 1:26-38 Revised Standard Version

            ²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” ²⁹ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. ³² 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 father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.” ³⁴ And Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” ³⁵ And 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 called holy, the Son of God.

            ³⁶ And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. ³⁷ For with God nothing will be impossible.” ³⁸ And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

also

II Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26

Romans 16:25-27

With God Nothing Will Be Impossible

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

“In the sixth month,” our Gospel begins. In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy the events of this final Advent Gospel occur. Elizabeth, Mary’s kinswoman, elderly and heretofore barren, is the wife of the priest Zechariah, to whom the first angelic annunciation of Luke’s Gospel came. Elizabeth and Zechariah’s child will be John the Baptist. He is Jesus’ forerunner even in utero. Elizabeth, like her Old Testament precursors Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah, is a married woman who has wanted a child for a long time. Luke’s parallel annunciation stories contrast her with Mary, a young woman, sexually chaste, betrothed—a binding commitment, something more than engaged, but less than married—to Joseph.

The angel Gabriel, the same angel who appeared to Zechariah in the Jerusalem temple, comes to the hinterlands of Galilee, to insignificant Nazareth, and says to Mary, “Hai1, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” It is no surprise that she is greatly troubled by this unusual greeting. Unlike the way he introduced Zechariah and Elizabeth, Luke hasn’t said anything in connection with Mary about her righteousness, faithfulness to the Law, or family heritage. Who am I, Mary has to have wondered, to be greeted in this way?

As the angels of the Bible often do, Gabriel says to her, “Do not be afraid.” He assures her again that she has found favor with God. Then he goes on to say why: Mary will conceive and bear a son to be called Jesus, who will be great. He will be the Son of the Most High (God), who will give him the throne of his father David. This unusually conceived child, Jesus, will be both Son of God and son of David. It is to his status as son of David that our First Reading speaks.

A thousand years before the Gospel scene in Nazareth unfolded, David the king was musing about the grand cedar palace he had built for himself in Jerusalem, and the tabernacle, the tent, which housed the ark of the covenant, the sign of God’s presence with his people Israel, the house of Jacob. David confided to the prophet Nathan his thoughts of building a proper house for God. Nathan thought God would bless the enterprise until he was corrected by the word of the Lord that night: instead of David building God a house, a temple, God will make David a house, a dynasty. God’s promise is that this house, this kingdom, David’s throne, would be established and made sure forever.

The House of David was a pretty amazing dynasty. It continued for four hundred years until the last king, Jehoiachin, reigned for three months and was taken into Babylonian captivity. Four hundred years is a pretty good run, but it’s not forever. As Israel continued to reflect on God’s promise to David and other prophecies of the Old Testament, they came to be seen as the promise of the Messiah, the anointed davidic king who would restore the kingdom and reign forever. That’s what Gabriel means when he said that the child Mary is to conceive and bear will be given the throne of his father David.

What about the other claim to sonship? That’s even more amazing: This child will be called the Son of the Most High (God). Even more than first claim, this had to prompt Mary’s question, “How shall this be?” I suppose, she may have thought, that since my betrothed, Joseph, is descended from David, the son of David part might make sense, if God is willing to wait for our marriage to be consummated. But Son of God? How shall this be?

Gabriel gives a threefold reply: First, the conception will be the work of the Holy Spirit, so the child will be holy, the Son of God. Second, what has already happened with Elizabeth is a sign that God is able to do this sort of thing. Third, “with God nothing will be impossible.” As at the creation of the world and at Pentecost, the creation of the church, so in the conception and birth of Jesus the Holy Spirit overshadows the situation and performs this new and mighty act of God. Already Elizabeth is in her sixth month: the prophecy of Israel’s messianic hope is beginning to be fulfilled in the conception of John, the Forerunner.

And with God nothing will be impossible. It is not impossible for God’s promise to David to be fulfilled, though all earth’s proud empires pass away. It is not impossible for Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ, although the long-expected One comes in so unexpected a way. It is not impossible for the crucified Jesus to be raised from the dead; that is, it is impossible for death to hold the Son of the Most High.

Mary doesn’t foresee herself standing at the foot of the cross, nor praying in the upper room for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, when she responds to Gabriel, but she offers the response that God seeks: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Her response to God’s challenging invitation makes her a model of what St. Paul in today’s Epistle calls “the obedience of faith.”

Jesus is the Son of God. Through his human mother he enters human life. Mary is chosen by God to be his incomparable temple, the true ark of the covenant. Saying, let it happen to me as you have said, she gives her womb as space for God in this world. The Annunciation shows Mary as the first and model disciple, a pattern for the life of faith: she fully and responsibly accepts the will of God for her, accepts her part in the mysterious drama of salvation.

The Annunciation is the beginning of the revelation of the mystery hidden for ages and revealed only in the coming of Jesus. The revelation seeks a response: the obedience of faith. It is not impossible for Mary to accept that God has favored her even as she is unsure why she has been chosen, keenly aware of her own unimportant status, disturbed by the unexpected declaration of her pregnancy. But she does not swoon, cry out, or flee from the room. She accepts, and just so shows that with God nothing will be impossible, not even our own willingness to accept God’s will in the obedience of faith, making even people like us signs of his presence in this world.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net