The Hope of the Messiah: From Barren to Blessed

On this last Sunday of Advent, we move into the New Testament - the Gospel of Luke. Luke is of two books, Luke and Act, that are an attempt, as the gospel writer says at the very beginning, to set down an orderly account of the events for Theophilus, Translated “God-lover.” So that you may know the truth concerning the things that have been handed onto us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word.

And so, today, God-lovers, we read from the holy gospel according to Luke.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 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 ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 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 holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And Mary said,
“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.”

And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. 

--Luke 1:26-56 (NRSV)

"Barren. That’s what we both were, Mary and I. Barren. Mary, a teenager, having never known a man, a virgin, without child. Barren. And I, old. Having known a man, also without child. Barren. It is this that perhaps connected Mary and I most. Our barrenness. Our emptiness. Our disgrace - well, mostly my disgrace.

I had prayed for a child during all of my child-bearing years. Like Sarah. Like Rebecca. Like so many other women in our history, in the stories of our faith, who had prayed to God for a child as much as I prayed for a descendant for my husband, Zechariah, and I. We lived righteously before God. Followed and observed all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations. Yet, unlike Sarah and Rebecca, I remained barren. My disgrace before others.

Yet, Mary and I would not remain barren. It was nothing that we did - everything that happened was from the Lord, announced by the angel, Gabriel. God’s messenger who came, first, to my husband, and then to Mary. Announcing these miraculous births. My child, who would be another messenger of God. Of the long-promised Messiah.

But, Mary. The announcement she received was different. The angel called her “favored one.” Favored one? Mary? First named in the story without a name, but only that she was engaged to Joseph. This was the status of women in my time, connected only to the men in our lives. And only important based on our ability to bear children. Especially, to bear sons. Mary, favored? Perhaps it was this title that perplexed her. Made her wonder. Made her ask the question how she might become pregnant without having known a man. Not that she doubted the possibility. But, that she was simply curious how this was to happen. Do you notice she never asked for a sign? Unlike my husband. Unlike so many prophets called throughout the history of our people, Mary never asked for a sign. 

But, then, the angel Gabriel gave her a sign. Me. Pregnant in my old age. I was to be her sign that God would descend on her womb in the way God had descended upon the tabernacle at Sinai. And how God had descended upon my womb. Because nothing is impossible with God.

And so she came to visit me. In my sixth month, with my pregnancy showing. When I saw her I felt my unborn baby leap within me. The Holy Spirit moved me, a woman, to prophesy what had already been spoken to her. That she would be the God-bearer. The Theotokos. The one who would bear the Messiah, the fulfilment of God’s promise to King David. And to us, from across the ages. 

No longer barren, either of us. But now blessed. Mary, the Alpha, and I, the Omega. From young to old, beginning to end, both of us, blessed. Not simply vessels to bear children, but Spirit-filled, prophetic, profound people, created by God. Blessed by God. How profound this was in our time! How profound this is for your time!

How could Mary do anything other than sing? Like Hannah, like Miriam, like Deborah of old, how could Mary do anything other than sing of the freedom and liberation that God has done, is doing, and will continue to do in our world, through her son, Jesus? The Anointed One. Son of the Most High. Emmanuel - God with us. 

May you, like Mary and I, know and believe the truth concerning the things that have been handed onto you by us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word. May you, like Mary and I, know and believe that God comes to set us free, to liberate us and our world from all that holds us captive. And may you, like Mary and I, know and believe that, even in the midst of our deepest darkness, God is doing a new thing. For nothing will be impossible with God. Amen."

Singing the Song of Lent

The film, “Remember the Titans,” is based on a true story, set in the 1970s in Alexandria, Virginia.  For years, schools have been segregated between black and white.  Under a federal order to integrate, two schools, one white and one black, are forced to close and form T.C. Williams High School, a fully integrated school.

The white head football coach of the Titans is replaced by an African-American coach from North Carolina, Coach Herman Boone, who is played in the movie by Denzel Washington.  There are deep tensions on the team, between black and white players, between black and white parents, between black and white coaches.  There are deep tensions in the city.  

Then the team goes on a two-week training camp--a boot camp of sorts--in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania--the site of the deadliest battle in the Civil War, a site of massive casualties for both Union and Confederate troops over three days.  It is there, at training camp in Gettysburg, where our scene begins.  Let’s watch!

The message for these young men was that, just like the soldiers in the Civil War, they, too, were part of a struggle that was much bigger than themselves.  A monumental struggle.  Something long--spanning history.   Something epic.  Something that has spanned the arc of our nation’s history into their own time and even into our time.

Eventually, though, these young men began to understand.  They began to come together.  And in the process, they were changed.  Their coaches and parents were changed.  The entire community was changed.

You and I are also part of something epic.  Something monumental.  A part of a story that spans the entire arc of history, beginning with the creation of our world, the deliverance of Israel out of slavery, the coming of the Messiah to, once and for all, deliver all people from sin into forgiveness, from death into life, from slavery into freedom.  

You and I are part of God’s story.  

Today, we begin the liturgical season of Lent.  In the early church, Lent was a time of learning, just like a training camp.  A journey for those new in the faith to prepare for their baptisms and to receive holy communion for the first time.  

During this time, they would immerse themselves in the three traditional disciplines of Lent--almsgiving, or caring for the poor; fasting; and immersing themselves in Scripture and prayer.

At the end of Lent came the Three Days, or the Triduum.  The Triduum was one service that began on Maundy Thursday, continued on Good Friday, and culminated with Easter Vigil on the evening before Easter Sunday. During the Three Days, these new believers would remember the movements of Christ during Holy Week--the Passover meal, Jesus’ death on the cross, and his resurrection.  And, at the culmination of the Easter Vigil, they would be baptized. And they would celebrate how they had been joined with Christ in his death and resurrection and delivered from sin and death to righteousness and freedom.  

The key to this Lenten journey for the new believers was conversion, or as the ancients put it, a change, a turning from one way of walking to another, from one way of life to a new way.  For these new believers, Christianity was not simply something more to do or to take on, but it was a complete change, a totally new way of living. And, in a pagan world, a world where Christians were a very small minority, it was a change that could also result in their death.

Like those early believers, we’re on a journey, too.  Now, it isn’t a journey that, for most of us, will result in a martyr’s death.  But, it is a journey of dying.  Dying to our old selves, dying to our old way of living.  And, for us, Lent is an opportunity in that journey to step back a bit, both as individuals and as a community.  To step back and take an inventory.  To take an inventory of our hearts. 

In the last verse of our lesson for this evening, we read these words, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  

What does your heart look like?  Where is your treasure?   

In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes that “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

You are the righteousness of God.  Where your heart is reflects how you are living into being that righteousness of God.  How are you living now? Are you living in a way that reflects the wonder, the gratitude, the joy that is our life in Christ?  Too often our lives rest in the anticipation of a future life with God, rather than living life in the here and now and in the assurance of God’s presence in the here and now.  

Now, living into that wonder and gratitude and joy that is our life in Christ doesn’t ignore the brokenness or the suffering that is so present in our world today.  It doesn’t deny our own brokenness or our own complicity in that suffering.   

Yet wrapped into these realistic truths of our broken human existence is a greater truth--the truth of the resurrection. 

In Romans 6, Paul writes, “We have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we may live a new way of life.”

Today, on Ash Wednesday, we remember our mortality.  Without Christ, we face a sure and permanent death.  Yet, death is not the end for us.  In our baptism, we have been joined with Christ in his death and his resurrection.  Lent doesn’t have to be a season of mourning and sacrifice.  It is okay for us to have joy during Lent, to lean into the life that is ours as resurrected people of Christ.  To step back and to wonder and see with gratitude where God is at work in our lives, in our church, in our community and in our world.  

And it is okay to sing.

So, sing!  Sing during this season of Lent.  Sing the song of the epic story that spans the entire arc of salvation history.  Sing the song of deliverance sung by Miriam at the Red Sea, by Mary at the angel’s announcement, by the angels at Christ’s birth, by Simeon in witness to the Messiah, by the early Christians in a hostile, pagan world, by Luther in a medieval world of reform, by the faithful leaders of the Civil Rights movement as they marched for freedom, by the whole church today and by all the church triumphant.  

At the end of Lent, you will look back and you will see how you have been changed by this song.  This song of joy and wonder.  This song of humble awe and gratitude.  This song of Jesus, who is with us here and now, and forever into all eternity.  Amen.

Preached March 1, 2017, at Grace and Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Ash Wednesday
Readings: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51:1-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b - 6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21