O Lord,
I don’t know what it means,
To be “full of grace.”
I hardly know what it looks like when Your angels appear.
Maybe they’ve disguised themselves too well for me to see
(but more likely I was only looking elsewhere—
that’s how it usually goes with me).
And what would I do anyway when they come to ask the impossible?
I know what I might try to do today:
I might say “yes” to You
and see what happens next.
Because nothing is impossible with You.
That’s what they tell me anyway.
And I’m ready to try it all out.
So, yes.
Some of you may be familiar with that popular Christmas song, “Mary, Did You Know?” by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene. It’s been covered by everyone from Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire and a host of other country artists to Pentatonix, Amy Grant, Mary J. Blige, even the Ditchfield Family Singers–there’s over a hundred versions recorded since 1984.
And some of you might have seen the controversy about this song, largely captured in memes on the internet. My favorite is the one of Batman slapping Robin for daring to ask the question. I recently saw someone accusing the singer of trying to mansplain the Magnificat to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
So what’s the answer? Did Mary know that her baby boy would one day walk on water? That when she kissed her little baby, she kissed the face of God–that the child that she delivered would soon deliver her–and all the rest of us?
Well, I have two answers for you today. YES. and NO. OF COURSE she knew. We’re talking about the most famous and revered person in the history of the world, the only human ever hailed by an archangel and described as “full of grace.” This is Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Theotokos–the God-bearer, which is what Christians decided very early on to call her. This is the most extraordinary human ever, picked out by God over everyone else in history to bear His Son.
One can certainly argue that Mary must have known. Look, she’d already heard about her cousin Elizabeth’s impossible pregnancy with John the Baptist as the archangel appeared with all of these incredible promises to her. FULL of the grace of God. Plus all you have to do is read through the Magnificat, which we just heard–look at all she in fact knew about: mercy, that generations would rise up and call her Blessed, about filling the hungry with good things, and the rich sent empty away. She knew enough to begin immediately to sing praise God for all He had done for her. She was full of grace. She was the “house” that the Lord declared He would make. She was literally full of Jesus. How could she not know?
But…on the OTHER hand (and here is where Mary is such a gift to us), how could she POSSIBLY have known how God’s plan would unfold through her for the whole world? How could she or any of the rest of us ever know or begin to fathom the awesome extent of the love of God? Theologians have spent centuries arguing about nearly every implication of Jesus’s life and nature. It took the Church Fathers centuries to come to agreement about the Second Person of the Trinity, and for almost a thousand years there’s still a huge debate dividing East and West over ONE SINGLE WORD about Him. So how could this young Jewish teenager who couldn’t read or write have known everything about her Son, Immanuel, God Himself with us? How in the world could she be expected to understand the very nature of God, when none of the rest of us have been able to figure it out ever since? Mary couldn’t have had a clue. She must have been as absolutely baffled as any of us would be when trying to peer into the mysteries of God Himself.
And that makes her baffled “yes” so remarkable. I tried to capture some of that in my opening prayer. And I think that Mary’s responses perfectly capture what Fr. Charleston preached last week about when he exhorted us to listen to the Lord.
The archangel said to this innocent teenager, “Hail, Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with you. And you’re going to have God’s BABY!!!” And how does she respond?
- First, she says, “HUH?!?!” She’s totally confused. “How can this be?” She asks the question that any of us would ask, but notice how she LISTENS to the answer from the angel. And once she kind of understands, she says:
- “Okay–here I am.” Another way of saying that is “Behold” but what she’s really saying is “Hineni,” which means, “Here am I.” It’s what any person says in the Hebrew scriptures anytime God calls them: Adam, Moses, Abraham, Isaiah. It’s kinda like the answer to God’s roll-call. Here am I, ready to serve you, Lord!
- Next, she calls herself the “Handmaid of the Lord.” I’ve mentioned the word from this pulpit before–it means a willing voluntary, lifelong servant.
- Mary not only listened to God’s message to her from the angel, but she really heard God–and then demonstrated her hearing by her obedience, by her baffled “yes.”
- And finally, we have her baffled yes, a perfect prayer for all of us at the end of this bewildering year. She says: “From your mouth to God’s ear.” “Whatever you want me to do, however I can serve” “Amen–so be it.” She says “May it be with me as you have said,” what we all should say when asked for the impossible.
But nothing will be impossible with God, and in Him we can do ALL things even when we don’t understand. In the end, what matters so much more than what Mary knew or didn’t know is how she responded to the Gospel of God. Mary reminds us that all we have to do is say yes to anything her Son asks us to do.
So let me close by asking you to ponder this one question this season, at the end of this confusing year. Like Mary, how can we say yes? I have no idea what the Lord wants you to do, but I do know that God plans good for each of us, even when we might not understand. Today, this week, next year and right now–like Mary did so long ago, how will we say “YES” to God?
Sermon preached by Andrew Lazo (Seminarian)
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
4th Sunday of Advent
20 December 2020