The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY
In the Sunday readings, we get small selections from the Scriptures every Sunday and holy day. That is reasonable; we cannot read the whole Bible every Sunday! However (there's always a 'however', isn't there?) we need, I think, to stand back and look at the whole group of readings for several Sundays, every now and then. You've heard the old proverb, You can't see the forest because you are looking at the trees ; it's very true. Sometimes we get so involved in the reading for one Sunday that we don't notice the whole big picture that that Scripture is part of. So, today, I would like us to take a little time for a wide-angle look at the Advent and Christmas story. Let's "zoom out" a little and look at it.
We all know how it goes. The angel Gabriel came to a young girl named Mary who lived in Nazareth, up in the north part of Israel. She was engaged to a man named Joseph. She probably would be about 14 or 15 since Jewish girls at that time were married as soon as they were physically able to have children. The angel gave Mary some shocking news: you are going to have a son, and that son is not from any man but from God. You must name him Jesus, because he will save his people.
That must have been frightening for Mary. How would you feel if an angel suddenly appeared to you, with news like that? And, to make it even more scary, Mary knew that by Jewish law, if she was found pregnant and Joseph said it wasn't his baby, she could be put to death in a terrible way...stoned to death. You could understand it, maybe even sympathize, if she said, "No, leave me alone!" But she said, "Let it be done to me according to what God wants."
The angel went on to explain that Mary's cousin (probably it was really her mother's cousin), named Elizabeth, was 6 months pregnant, even though she was an old woman, past the time for having children. Elizabeth had never been able to have a baby before, so it was very unusual that she would be expecting one now. That baby grew up to be John the Baptist, whom we read about today. God had arranged for him to be born before Jesus, and to be the one to preach and teach the people so they would be ready for Jesus to tell them about God's love for everyone.
Okay, that is the "zoom-out" view. We will get more short, "zoom-in" views in our Sunday Bible readings the next week or two. Right now I want to call your attention to some of the things in the "zoom-out" view, things we might have overlooked because we were interested in the details of the readings.
First, have you noticed that it is God who makes the first move with each person in the Advent and Christmas readings? The whole plan of having God become human in order to save the people is God's plan, not anybody else's. But: God sent an angel to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, to tell him that his elderly wife would have a child. God sent the angel to Mary to tell her that she had been chosen to become the mother of God's son, and, what's more, the angel asked her if she accepted. Just think of that: the whole future of the entire human race depended on the answer of a 14-year-old girl! Then God sent an angel to Joseph, in a dream, to tell him to go ahead and marry Mary, and not accuse her of adultery or have her put to death. All of this is God's doing, not any person's. Elizabeth was so old that she and her husband, Zechariah, had given up even hoping for a child. Mary had no reason to think she might have a baby; she knew there was no possibility that she could be pregnant. And Joseph probably felt very angry and upset to find that the girl he intended to marry was pregnant; he knew it could not possibly be his child. Clearly, God set all these events in motion, they were not the doings of the people involved.
I wonder how many of us are aware enough of God, and think enough about God, to be able to understand what is happening if God speaks to us, or sends us a message through an angel or in some other way? Are we "tuned in" to God? Or are we too busy with other things, or too involved with our own ideas and interests to pay attention to messages from God?
Even if we think we have a message from God, how do we react? Do we let our own habits or our own emotions get in the way of cooperating with God? Zechariah told the angel that this simply couldn't be true. He and his wife were too old to have a baby, and that's that! But the angel said it would be true, God had decided this. And because Zechariah argued with God's will, he was made mute until the baby John was born. Just think of it...he couldn't speak for at least 9 months! It was not until the baby was born, and Zechariah wrote down, His name is John, that he was able to speak again. How many of us try to argue with God, pointing out that what he wants us to do just isn't realistic, just isn't possible, just isn't done?
Joseph had a different reason not to believe the angel in his dream. It was pride. It made him look very bad to have the girl he was going to marry be pregnant, and especially since he knew it wasn't his baby. He must have wondered if another man was involved. Even after the angel came in the dream, he must have wondered and wished he knew for sure. Call it machismo , or call it male ego, or call it pride, but whatever you call it, that feeling got in the way of his fully accepting what God wanted. God was merciful enough not to punish Joseph for his doubts.
But, what about the rest of us? What gets in the way of our own accepting God's call to us? Because, you know, God does call all of us, often. The trouble is that most of the time we don't even notice we are being called by God to do something for him. He doesn't always send us an angel, or a dream. But he shows us what he wants us to do. See the homeless folks going into the soup kitchen or the shelter? Is that perhaps a call to you to help out there, or to give a gift of money to help buy food or other needed things? Is it perhaps a call to you to work with the Red Cross or Salvation Army to find ways to help the homeless? And is your answer, "Yes, Lord," or is your answer something like, "Well, I don't have time, and I don't have much extra money, and I am afraid I will catch some bug from those people"?
Did you see that barrel for canned food collection near the door of your supermarket? Is that a call to you from the Lord, to buy a couple of extra cans and put them in the barrel on your way out? And do you do it? Or do you say, "Well, I need all my money to buy that big turkey for my family's Christmas dinner, and presents for my own folks"?
Did you see the article in the paper about how many children in our district are not doing well on the state tests? Is that perhaps a call to you from God, to volunteer to tutor at a tutoring center or a community center? And did you call to volunteer, or do you tell yourself that you don't have a teaching certificate and anyway you don't have time to do that kind of thing?
You see what I am talking about. God calls us all in many different ways, every day. He shows us what he would like us to do, and leaves it up to us to answer his call. How many of us are so self-centered that we don't even recognize that he has called us? How many of us, once we understand we are getting a call from God, ignore it? How many of us let some emotion or some lame excuse prevent us answering his call? How many of us, like Mary, say, "Let it happen as you want, dear Lord" and then actively participate in making it happen? Isn't that one of the lessons we need to learn from Advent?
Amen.
