A whisper of grace landed in my ear, "You're going to have a baby boy, Mary! Now ain't that good news?"
But my mind captured every question overwhelming me, and only one found its way free. "How? How can this be?"
"Mary, don't you know? Nothing is impossible for God! Nothing!"
And that's the only reminder I needed. Because somewhere inside of me something was breathing life into my faith and calling me to speak. These words came from the gut of my soul where joy and pain, laughter and tears, life and death are born. They came from a place where God's spirit dwells. And that soul smiled as these words journeyed from my mouth.
"I am the Lord's. Let it be." (21st Century Africana Liturgy Resources: "Worship Resources for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year B" Copyright © 2005 Ciona D. Rouse. Used with permission. All rights reserved)
Once upon a time…..and everyone lived happily ever after. We all like a good fairy tale where everything comes together, all the threads of the story are tied together, and the good guys win, and the bad guys get there what is coming to them. If, however, we look to the Christmas story and expect to find a fairy tale we will be disappointed again, and again. The Christmas story is more like a movie from Central Asia. Movies from this part of the world tend to leave you hanging. They don't really have an "ending," the threads aren't tied together, and you don't really know if all is well when the movie credits roll. What you do know is embodied in this Afghan saying: "zendagi migzara," or life goes on.
We have such high expectations of the Christmas season. Embedded somewhere is the feeling that it should all come together perfectly-sort of like wanting a beautiful, snowy Christmas Day without the shoveling and traffic hassles that will bring. It doesn't help that the advertising world holds us to such standards-giving us the message that if we consume what they have to offer, everything will be perfect for us come Christmas morning. Glitz and glitter are par for the season. You might remember several years back a court fight that began in Little Rock, Arkansas and ended in the US Supreme Court. Jennings Osbourne's Christmas light display in his home and become famous and people drove miles to visit it. What had begun with 1,000 lights in 1986 had grown to over 3 million in the mid 90's. You can imagine the complaints of the neighbors. The Supreme Court ruled against the Osbourne's and the lights went out until Disney offered them a home to display their lights. Several years ago I wandered through the display at the MGM Studios. It was a gorgeous scene: the lights, Christmas carols playing, fake snow falling in the air. But another part of me was dismayed, and I found myself thinking, as I often do this time of year, "I'm sure this is just how God intends for us to celebrate Christmas. And of course, nothing bad will happen on this one day. There is an episode of MASH in which a soldier died during an operation on Christmas Day, and Hawkeye had the clock turned forward to the next day so that the soldier's family would not have his death associated with Christmas.
All the expectations get us into trouble. We buy into the ideal that if somehow we do just enough we can make it all right and have everything come together. But, instead of finding God born anew in us and knowing that deep, abiding joy, we find ourselves lost and alone. Instead of finding the peace and comfort of God-with-us, we find all of our lost hopes and dreams painfully focused in what is not.
It is Mary's story that gives us a way through. Mary's story is not a fairy tale. Picture her predicament. Mary surely had expectations of how her life would play out. There wasn't much guess work in the rigidly defined cultural norms of her day. Some of those expectations were already playing out: she was betrothed. She could begin dreaming of her marriage, of making a home, of having children someday. Into those dreams the angel Gabriel comes to turn it all upside-down. She is to bear a child under unusual circumstances, her betrothed is likely to have her stoned, and she is supposed to see this as good news!
Yet somehow she comes to the place where this is good news. Luke's gospel tells that story. The gospel proclaims the radical difference of Jesus by telling this story of his conception through the Holy Spirit. Nothing is said as to why Mary has found favor with God, but perhaps it is because she is the first to hear the Good News proclaimed. And not only the first to hear, but the first to believe. She is able to discern between the call of her day that had set up the expectations for her life, and the call of God that announced the news of this baby born to her.
In her discernment we find our way to the joy that God gives us in Christmas. In Mary's story we are asked to set aside our expectations and our drive to create the perfect holiday; and look instead for God's promises and expectations. It is no accident that the first to hear the Good News are those the world did not trust. In the court system of their day shepherds and women were not allowed to testify in court because their testimony was not considered trustworthy. Consider Mary's age, around 15, think of your own teenagers-and know that God chose to speak through such a one! I don't think God is playing games with us or trying to make it harder by entrusting the Good News with such people. It has more to do with the fact we need the messages to come from places that are as profoundly different as the proclamation of Good News is.
This is indeed a time of extravagance. But not as the world gives. If we place our hopes and dreams in the amount of money and time we spend getting Christmas together we will find ourselves disappointed. We will always be able to look around at what is, and mourn what is not. It is in the extravagant, messy story of God's birth that we will know peace and comfort. The extravagance of that love is not seen in the "how much" or the "how perfect" but in the "little" things-a child receiving communion with reverently outstretched hands, an usher kneeling down to receive the offering of a child, the wax stained hymnals from years of singing "Silent Night" by candlelight, of toddlers playing in the boxes their toys came in, of random acts of kindness offered by others. And if we can see the extravagance of God's love there, then maybe, just maybe we will be able to turn our eyes to a dark and hurting world and see God in the homeless, the lost, the war torn, and the shattered.
This year may we sing Mary's song and dare to say with her: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."