Fourth Tuesday in Advent: December 20

Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalm 24; Luke 1:26-38

“Do not be afraid.”  It’s gotta be trouble when we keep hearing that.  People who have no reason to be afraid don’t go around reminding themselves not to be afraid.  Messengers of good news would normally not be so insistent that we not be afraid.  But there is such a thing as good news that is terrifying: for example, “I am (or we are) going to have our first baby.”

Among the Companions we have a phrase to capture this: “Hallelujah, holy s___.”  Sometimes we receive an awareness or a gift that is both wonderful and challenging, calling us to be more and dare more.  I hope you have had those experiences.  

The news that comes to Mary, the blessing, is more than daunting.  She doesn’t know it all yet, but this “blessing” will take her from everything familiar and safe.  She will be talked about and scorned by the neighbors.  Her child will be marked as strange.  He will become an itinerant preacher and healer, and a threat to the established order.  He will die before her eyes, a horrible death on a cross.  Greetings, favored one!

The level of spiritual insight needed to see this as a blessing is beyond my comprehension.  I get to read the story, framed as the triumph of the Messiah.  Even so, it’s hard spiritual work to see and choose that kind of blessing.  But for Mary, and for Joseph, who must choose whether to listen to this message and remember it through the hard times, it must have been beyond anything I can imagine.  To say yes to this paradox - this triumph that looks like abject failure - is nothing short of astounding.

You may not think you’re called to make such a choice.  Sorry, favored one.  We are each called to choose whether to stand with the outcast and hurting or to hide among the crowd.  No one gets through life without pain; the questions are about what is worth hurting for, and how much, and what will come of it.  Mary staked her life on the news that the Messiah would come and save the people through her.  You may not have to go that far.  You may not be called to go that far, but you are invited to go forward into that place where blessing and terror meet.  That is where we are truly alive, where the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our frail bodies and broken world.  

Where are you called to be more?  God is with you.