Sermon for the fourth week of Advent.

Click here to read the biblical text.

Our gospel on this last Sunday of Advent recounts the well-known tale of the Annunciation, where the archangel Gabriel announces to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she is destined to be the mother of Jesus, God’s Son. Over the past two millennia, this story has been told and retold so many times that it can be hard to comprehend its intended emotional impact. To modern ears, the Annunciation is a sweet and tender introduction to the even sweeter story of the Nativity. But can you imagine how it must have sounded to Ss. Anne and Joaquim, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary?

Biblical scholars estimate that Mary would have been about fifteen years old at the time of the Annunciation, a typical marriage age for young women at that time. As the father of a fifteen-year-old at this time, I can keenly imagine how Anne and Joachim must have felt when they first heard the news of Gabriel’s visit.

Mary: “Mom? Dad?”

Anne and Joaquim: “Yes sweetheart, what is it?”

M: “Umm… I need to tell you something. I’m pregnant and my fiancé Joseph isn’t the father.”

The biblical text doesn’t tell us anything about Anne and Joaquim’s reaction, but I imagine they probably felt angry and terrified at the same time, which is completely understandable. This news would have been the embodiment of their worst nightmares for their daughter. Also, what Mary had to say next probably didn’t help them feel any better. How would you feel if your teenage daughter hit you with this news and followed it up with a crazy-sounding story about angels and prophecies? I imagine them pacing the floor, rubbing their temples, and asking, “How could this happen?! What were you thinking?!”

At this moment, Anne and Joaquim probably felt their stomach dropping and their mind racing. This is the feeling of their sympathetic nervous system kicking into high gear. The amygdala in their brain was, flooding their bodies with adrenaline to initiate the fight or flight response. If you’ve ever had the experience of someone shocking you with big news, you can probably relate to what they were feeling.

Mary herself seems to have been quite confused by what was going on. The gospel text tells us she was “perplexed” and asking, “How can this be?” This too is a completely understandable reaction, given the circumstances. Here was a teenage kid, in way over her head, with almost no life experience to guide her.

The response I find most interesting is the one that comes from the archangel Gabriel. The first words out of his mouth are, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” In modern language, I like to imagine that this is the equivalent of, “Congratulations!” The next thing Gabriel says is, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” And finally, after explaining the situation, Gabriel ends by saying, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

While the humans in this moment are understandably perplexed and freaking out, the angel is the only one responding from a calm place of acceptance and hopeful possibilities. 

In scientific terms, this is akin to the wonderful human ability for the prefrontal cortex of our brains to override the baser impulses of our fight/flight system. You’ve probably experienced this as well, such as those moments when some reckless driver cuts you off in traffic and you successfully resist the urge to run them off the road. You remember, in that moment, that you are going seventy miles an hour in a thousand pounds of metal. After an instant of panic, your rational faculties kick back in and you remember that going to jail will not remedy the situation. 

This is how God has designed our brains. We can choose how to respond when circumstances arise that are less than ideal. We can fly off the handle or we can take a deep breath. We can descend to the level of our basic instincts or we can appeal to “the better angels of our nature,” as President Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it in his inaugural address of 1861.

The astounding truth of this biblical story, which emerges when we look past two thousand years of pious nostalgia, is that God has chosen to save the world through the unplanned pregnancy of an unwed teenage mother. “For nothing will be impossible with God,” as the angel Gabriel has said.

Whether one is talking about teen pregnancy, gun violence, or any other number of social problems that presently plague our society, a common refrain among religious people is that these things are happening because “we’ve kicked God out of our country.” But, if two millennia of Christian theology are to be believed (and I think they are), then this teen pregnancy is the exact place where God has chosen to be most present to our world. This realization should shape the way we choose to respond to pregnant teenagers and any other persons who find themselves in circumstances that are less than ideal. 

One of the collects at Compline, the nighttime office from The Book of Common Prayer, reads as follows: 

“Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

BCP, p. 133

This prayer is immediately followed by the following prayer for mission: 

“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.”

BCP, p. 134

What I love most about these prayers, which are meant to be said just before retiring at night, is how they insist on the presence of God in the most troubling of times and call upon God’s people to participate in the mission of reconciling heaven and earth by caring for each other.

God is most present, not in sweet moments of peace and plenty, but in hard times of want and woe. God comes to us in our hour of need, often through the hands and hearts of caring people, and grows within us. The Divine Word takes on flesh, using the DNA of our own cells, so that we might be the hands and feet of Christ on this Earth. This is the message of Christmas.

The message of Advent, our season of unexpected pregnancy, is to care well for the Christ that grows within us by caring well for the Christ that grows within those around us.

Wherever we go in this life, we find ourselves as divinely favored people in the midst of unfavorable circumstances. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we choose to respond to it. Will we fall prey to the demons of panic and despair? Or will we listen to “the better angels of our nature” and declare, as Gabriel did, that “nothing will be impossible with God”?

I have no doubt that you, during this holiday season, will find yourself in the midst of circumstances that are less than ideal. They may be as major as an unexpected pregnancy, a tragic loss, or a global crisis. On the other hand, they may be as minor as a burnt dinner, a delayed flight, or a traffic jam. Wherever you find yourself this Christmas, I encourage you to listen to “the better angels of your nature” by trusting in God’s presence, caring well for yourselves and each other, and responding to these crises, large or small, with the calm compassion of the archangel Gabriel, saying:

Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you…
Do not be afraid… For nothing will be impossible with God.”