Advent 4 B

There’s this recurring joke in the Mel Brooks film “High Anxiety” where every time one character is helping move or carry something, he goes, “I got it. I got it… I don’t got it.” And drops whatever he’s carrying. I sometimes feel like that this time of year, when my Advent good intentions turn into Christmas anxieties. I think to myself: “I’m ready. I’m ready… I’m not ready.”

And it’s not just readiness in planning for holiday festivities with family and friends … although, I’m not ready in that department. And it’s not just readiness in preparations for Christmas Eve worship and preaching … although, I’m not totally ready in that department either. What I’m not sure of, as we approach Christmas, is the readiness to believe that God’s Word actually takes on skin and enters into our little world here — a world full of imperfections, annoyances, difficult decisions, and, let’s face it, high anxiety.

Now, there is nothing magical about the Eve and the day of December 25th; it’s not like we are somehow closer to God on that particular day of the calendar, kind of like when the planet Earth is closest to the Sun. No, of course God is always present in our world. But it is this time of year that our readings and our songs draw us into remembering the immanence of God, the closeness of God, which can be both comforting and terrifying, to be honest. “I’m ready, I’m ready,” I tell myself, as I think of all the ways in which our world needs to be changed by the presence of God, until I start to realize that a lot of that change needs to happen in me, too, and then… “I’m not ready.”

I do feel ready, as I think about how Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is needed in this world to bring together people who are so angry that they won’t speak with each other. I’m ready as I think about how Jesus, the Wonderful Counselor, could help so many people around me make better decisions in their lives. I’m not so ready as I realize Jesus, King of the Nations, means I won’t be in charge anymore.

All of this is to underscore how amazing it is to find in the Gospel account from Luke — this story of Emmanuel, God with us, entering into our world — that it all comes to pass with young Mary. Could you find a less prepared person to be Ground Zero for the Incarnation, the most important human character in the story of the Birth of Jesus? Mary?

If Mary lived in our society, she most likely would not be old enough to vote. She might not be old enough to drive a car. If they made a true-to-life movie about everything that’s recorded in the book of Luke, Mary wouldn’t be old enough to watch it in a movie theater! And in her society, she would have been considered among the least important and least powerful of all people.

I had to prepare for four years to become a pastor, but for the most vulnerable moment of Jesus’ life, for his birth into this dangerous and anxious world, God chose Mary, an unwed woman who had never even before given birth. Don’t you think God would have chosen someone with at least a little experience?

So as you and I contemplate whether we are ready for Christmas, just imagine Mary getting the news that she got in today’s Gospel.

An angel, a messenger of God, appeared out of the blue, passing over all the rich and powerful people, all the movers and shakers of first century Mediterranean politics and came instead to a nobody, according to her society. Even her name, Mary, was extremely common then. (That’s why there are so many Marys in the Gospels.) And God’s messenger tells Mary, “Greetings, favored one.” See, even before she knows what’s about to happen, even before she agrees to anything that the angel says, she is already favored. She is already blessed. And then the angel explains that she will bear a child who will be great. Nothing that Mary had ever done had probably been called ‘great’ before. And besides that, Mary wonders how this could even be possible, being a virgin, being so ill prepared, being unready to even have a regular child, let alone the Son of the Most High. And the angel says, yes, but this is a God thing. With God, nothing is impossible. And with that simple explanation, Mary says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

And in that moment, we can see why God passed over the proud and the powerful. God favored Mary, who knew beyond any doubt that all her strength, all her readiness, came from God alone. Let it be with me according to your word, she said.

Her readiness had nothing to do with being prepared and had everything to do with God.

This is the Gospel: the surprise that God’s love for us has nothing to do with our preparedness, nor our accomplishments. This Good News turns everything upside down. It works opposite the way we expect. It seems so risky that God would choose Mary. It seems so irrational that God would favor us before we’ve done anything. When Mary herself experiences this Gospel she sings God’s praises:

“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. 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.” (Luke 1.46–55 NRSV)

We are never quite prepared for the way God enters our world: through weakness, through the lowly, in the last place that we expect.

~~~

I read a quote this week from a well-known writer and Trappist monk named Thomas Merton who said, “Advent is the beginning of the end of all in us that is not yet Christ.” [x2] In other words, Advent is not just the few weeks that we wait for the day and celebration of Christmas. Advent is everything in us that is waiting for Christ. Advent is any time and any place in our lives that is not quite there. When we are ready, ready, not quite ready.

And just like the season of Advent is hopeful anticipation for the coming of Christmas, the deeper meaning of Advent is hopeful anticipation for the coming of Christ into every part of our world, our bodies, and our minds that is not yet Christlike.

Advent is hope for all the un-Christlike parts of us. The parts that don’t live up to Christ, the Prince of Peace. To Christ’s gentle Wisdom. To his bold and dangerous faith in God. To his uncompromising love for his neighbor. Advent is hope for all those parts that are not yet Christ in us that we don’t like. And even more: Advent is hope for all the parts that are not yet Christ that we do like — or at least, that don’t want to let go of.

Advent is hope for our lives and the world around us to hear the same Good News that Mary heard: that God has favored us, even before we know what’s to come next. The Good News that we will experience the presence of the Most High God in this world. In flesh and blood.

And the Good News that Christ is coming to us, into every part of us that is not yet Christ.

But just as this Good News comes in the most surprising way at Christmas, it comes in the most surprising ways into our lives. The Gospel turns our world upside down, too. This process of Christ coming into our lives causes us to grow in ways we don’t expect.

Growing in Christ is not becoming greater and great. Growing in Christ is becoming lesser and lesser. It’s not picking up more and more, but letting go more and more. Growing in Christ is not hopeful anticipation that we will one day figure it out, but hopeful anticipation that we will one day say, like Mary, without doubt or hesitation, “Let it be with me, according to God’s will.”

We cannot be prepared. But we can be ready.