"Can You Believe It?"

Luke 1:39-55

A young girl, maybe around fourteen or fifteen years old, becomes pregnant. She is an orphan, living with her aunt and uncle - a small town girl from the working classes. She is engaged to a man much older than herself, a tradesman, a builder, himself a widower, but a kindly man. It may be that she sees in him the relationship she had hoped to have with her father, or that she was looking for stability in her life or, perhaps, just needed someone to love her. After all, we know the psychology of such relationships - such things happen all the time, don't they?

But who can believe her story - that there was some kind of divine intervention that caused her to become pregnant? She might as well have said that she became pregnant from a toilet seat. As she told it to those who would listen, it seemed that she, herself, believed the story she told. Perhaps she had to convince herself as well - but that isn't so unusual either, is it? A young girl like her, after going through so much, so early in life, finally getting what seemed to be a shot at a better life; but then she makes a tragic mistake - an affair, perhaps she was even raped by a soldier. At least that's one of the stories that was floating around in Jesus' time. Now she is in danger now of losing everything. So, in her mind, this story develops - about an angel, about giving birth to someone great - a divine intervention. But who could actually believe it? If it wasn't so tragic, it would be laughable.

Could Joseph believe her? I'm sure he cared for her. According to tradition, Joseph was a widower. Perhaps he saw in her something of his own dear wife when they were younger, reborn now in the love of this young girl. Perhaps he saw in her himself, young and vibrant, in the flush of youth again. Perhaps he saw in her something of the child he and his wife were never able to have. Certainly the earnestness with which she tells her story touches his heart, and deeply saddens him. Of course it's not true. Things like that don't happen - only in the mind of a deeply anguished teenager can something like that happen. He would like to believe her story, because he does love her. But how can he - how could anyone believe anything so preposterous!

Could the town’s folk? Nazareth was just a small town - even smaller than ours - one of those where everyone knows everyone else's business. Mary is, in a sense, the town's child. They've seen her grow up on the streets. They knew her mother and father when they were still alive. According to tradition, they passed away when she was a young child. It was sad that they passed away so early - such a tragedy! - leaving this child to be raised by her uncle and aunt. Perhaps they didn't keep a close enough watch on her. It was something of a story around town, in the first place, when she became engaged to an older man - you would have thought he'd look for someone his own age. They knew him to be kind, and were sure he would take good care of her; yet doubts lingered about how appropriate this was - this Summer/Winter relationship. Now she is pregnant - is he responsible? Is he less of a man than they had thought he was - the kind of man that would take advantage of a girl’s youth and inexperience? Did he, perhaps, force himself upon her? Or was it some other man - the rumor going around was that it was one of the Roman soldiers stationed in Bethlehem. Maybe she hadn't received the direction she needed - maybe her morals had to be called into question. Certainly her condition had more to do with lax morals than angel visitations! "That's the problem with kids today," they would say, shaking their heads. Angels getting girls pregnant! Who could believe that?

Joseph, it seems, has been played for the fool. But he will play it again. Instead of subjecting her to the taunts and ridicule of the town, he decides to marry her anyway, taking the blame for the child himself – then he sends her off, to visit her cousin, Elizabeth - until things cool off for them in Nazareth.

Yet as Mary approaches her cousin, she finds another marvel - another scandal - her cousin, and elderly woman, also is pregnant. Children are for the young - but here is her old cousin, barely able to walk any more herself - having a baby! Mary escapes one scandal only to fall right into the middle of another!

It is something of a miracle itself that Mary believes her own, crazy story. It's harder to understand that her cousin, Elizabeth, believes in it too. What is most amazing, however, is the reaction of both of them to these events that have overtaken them, that threaten to sweep them away. I don't know about you - but if I were a young girl, suddenly pregnant, with my marriage threatened, suddenly the object of derision by all the people who mean anything to me, without a place to go, without a future, without a husband - it wouldn't matter to me if it was God who did it to me - in fact, I would think that perhaps he had it in for me, that he was targeting me for some unwanted special attention. I wouldn't be too happy.

But that isn't Mary's take on the situation. She sees, in this pregnancy, something so unbelievable, so overwhelming, so earth-shatteringly wonderful, that she breaks into song! And the song is marvelous - about how God goes about turning everything topsy-turvy. About him creating a world where people like Mary - the poor, the outcast, the lonely, the heartbroken - where people like that are suddenly on the top of the heap; and where those whom the world respects and looks up to and dotes on are suddenly on the outside looking in. She sees her own life as a lens through which all the world, from this time forth, will see God in clear focus, playing out this divine preference for the lowest and lowliest: "My soul magnifies the Lord," she says! What audacity from the lips of this teenager - to sing that her life is the lens through which the world will come to understand the radical nature of God's love! We tend to see Mary as a quiet, lovely little girl who waits upon others - a good little girl that never would think to speak out of turn. But that's not the Mary of this scripture! She's one teenager who's a real handful!

Her song is a threat to the powerful and wealthy of the world. It's one of those songs in the Bible that we take to easily, too lightly - like 1 Corinthians 13, or the Song of Simeon - the kind that tend to blow up in your face if you take the time to look at them too carefully.

The centuries have proved the truth of her words, however - the mighty - Greece, Rome, the Third Reich, the Soviet Union - have all been thrown down. And we, ourselves, must walk cautiously, humbly - or else we also will follow. Those who thought they were something, God has shown to be nothing more than dust in the wind. She says that God is busy filling the hungry with good things - not by the "trickle down" theory of those who believe that if the rich have plenty, they will somehow be moved to charity, and share some crumbs with the poor. That's not God's way. The rich, she says, will be sent empty away - empty of spirit, empty of soul, empty of life - maybe even empty of pocket. Riches come and go. And meanwhile God is filling the poor with these same things. Mary's song goes on. The audacious teenager is right. She has become the lens through which the world has come to understand the radical nature of God's love.

Mary's song is threatening to us - to me, as a middle-aged, middle class, white male with a steady job. I have a home and a family, and live in the most affluent country in the world. Mary's song makes me wonder where I stand with God. It has led theologians of the poor to talk about God's "preferential option" for the poor and outcast - those who take a beating in our society and in our world. Those whom we tend to see as only a weight on our economy and a drain on our pocketbook. Maybe it should make us stop and think about how we treat them - that when we abuse them, we are standing against God himself.

Christmas has become, for us, little more than a spending-fest, a demonstration of the power of the dollar. Unless we get a lot of expensive gifts for our kids at Christmas time, we suspect that we haven't celebrated it correctly. American business has come to depend on Christmas to fuel the country's economy. Christmas has become, for many, nothing more than a race to see who has the first and the best and the most. Mary's song tips all of that on its head. It isn't the affluent that get Christmas's blessing, she says. It isn't the big bucks that buy Christmas joy. We think we know that - but we really don't. We keep on spending anyway. Maybe it's just because we don't know of another way; maybe it's just that we still buy into the wrong model. Mary's song points us in the right direction. Preparing our hearts for Christmas means believing the message of the angels - that God has come to us, and comes to us in ways that we have not expected - in the lowly and the lowest, in the brother in need, in the sister in distress, in the child in need of comfort. It has little to do with opening our wallets to those whom we already love, but a lot to do with opening our hearts to those around us, especially the ones we would most like to forget. Christmas isn't about getting enough for ourselves, it isn't about who's been naughty or nice, who is worthy or not of our love and care; it is about a God who has sent his Son to us despite our unworthiness and unfaithfulness - and who expects us to love and take care of one another on that same basis.

The heart of a poor fourteen year-old, pregnant girl grasped all that. What a huge, wonderful heart she must have had! The promise came to her, and the greatest miracle of Christmas is - she believed it. The message of this day is that the promise delivered two thousand and three years ago, is also God's promise for you, today. The word, "angel" in the Bible simply means, literally, "a messenger." Today I am your "angel," your messenger - even if I don't have wings, and the glow on my head has more to do with a lack of hair than with a halo. The message has been delivered to you. God desires Christ to be born in you. God wants you also to be a Christ-bearer. He wants to use you to carry and to bear the eternal Word made flesh into the world. Can you believe it? Will you believe it?