The Pastor’s Sermon, Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 18, 2011

Sunday's readings:  2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

                            Romans 16:25-27

                            Luke 1:26-38

Disclaimer: At the request of a few of the congregation, I’m ‘publishing’ the text of my sermon ‘as written.’ I cannot guarantee that I will deliver the sermon ‘as written.’

 Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’

• We'd all agree, I think, that Mary's response took a lot of faith. What would we do if we were faced with a similar situation? Would our faith be strong enough to answer as she did?
• We may never know. It's obvious that Mary's response to the angel's news took faith. To hear that you were to be the mother of a man who would be a prophet and more than a prophet, the saviour and the Son of God would be amazing and any of us could understand what sort of faith Mary must have had. Still it could be that the next morning might have taken even more faith. And the morning after that.
• To tell Joseph, her intended, about her situation would have taken faith.
• To be a pregnant woman dealing with day-to-day life in her time would have taken courage and faith. Remember she was found to be pregnant before she was married.
• To meet with and deal with her family while in her pregnant state and to hear Elizabeth's words about what her child was to be would take faith.
• In this, Mary remains a model of faith for us. She trusted and believed that what the angel said would happen would indeed happen. For her, faith would be a daily thing, as close to her as the life growing within her. She might be astounded and amazed, distressed and troubled, in fear or in pain for her son. And still she trusted. We know the life of Jesus and we also know that Mary watched and trusted all through her son's life. She was also present at the earliest events in the history of the church, as the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles attests.
• For all of us here today, faith goes far beyond the first flush of believing or the joy of festivals. When those things come into our lives, they are a great joy and a comfort to us. They are worth remembering and holding on to. It becomes a problem when a person decided to live in that moment and not continue their journey. Our lives are meant to be lived; that really is God's will for us, the reason he created us.
• Faith then becomes a daily response to all God gives us, to what the day brings. Faith is not something saved for special occasions or for times of disaster. We may pray and worship in a particular way at those times, and faith goes beyond that.
• Faith is what inspires and forms our every waking moment, sets and resets our values, and to a great extent, makes us who we are.
• Mary carried Jesus within her. Even after his birth, she would be constantly reminded of what her faith-filled response meant to her and led to. Because of her response - “let it be with me according to your word.” - the great story of salvation continued. When you think about it, she could have said “No.” She said “Yes” and trusted not only that Gabriel's words would be true, but also that God's grace would sustain her in the days following. She might not have understood all that the interchange with Gabriel would bring, but she trusted that God would see her through all that would come. I think we can say that her faith was renewed each and every day and even if she had days of confusion and days where she remained “perplexed” about all that was occurring, faith in God's grace and presence would see her through.
• In this, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and each of us are alike. We may experience confusion and dismay and even questioning in our lives of faith, but remember Mary asked a question as well. Despite the seeming impossibility of what the angel proclaimed to her, she continued to believe and to live as she believed, day after day, through the confusing, terrifying, and gloriously astounding events of Jesus' life and the life of the church, right to the end of her own life.
• That's what we are called to do as well. To live our lives in faith and in God's grace, responding to God's lead through confusion and doubt, saying “let it be with me according to your word.” as Mary did, trusting God, knowing that the angel has assured us as well that “...nothing will be impossible with God.’ ”