18th December 2011 - Advent 4

“Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to you word.”

The thing I love most about the Christmas story is the way that it focuses down and down to a moment of amazing significance and utter simplicity. It is a moment which has been depicted by artists over and over again. The moment when God becomes man in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

What do we know about Mary.

Firstly, we know that she was a young girl. She is a virgin, not yet married but engaged to be married. Girl’s were normally betrothed between the ages of thirteen and fourteen and married about a year later, so she was – perhaps – somewhere between fourteen and fifteen years old.

Next, we know she is from a humble background but not from absolute poverty. Today, of course, Nazareth is one of the best known  towns in the world but at the time of Jesus conception it was a shanty town. Nazareth was an outlying village to the City of Sepphoris  , a city that is never mentioned in the New Testament. Sepphoris was one of King Herod’s building projects. It was to be a Greco-roman city, built in stone and marble, and housing all the facilities of Greek and Roman life. Around the city were various shanty towns where the skilled and unskilled labourers lived. Nazareth was one of these towns and in it lived the carpenter Joseph. The word carpenter is a broader word in the New Testament than in today’s world. It means a worker in wood and stone. So Joseph would have been a builder who had moved up from his home town of Bethlehem to seek work in the place where work was to be found. Mary would have been from a similar background.

The last thing we know about Mary is her name. In Hebrew the name Mary is Miriam. In the Old Testament Miram was the sister of Moses and was she who watched over the infant Moses after his mother had placed him in a basket of reeds and floated him down the river Nile to the place where Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing. This was, of course, to save him from the command that all boy children should be killed. It is Miriam who shows great initiative by suggesting Moses’ own mother as his wet nurse. Later Miriam would participate with Moses in lead the Exodus of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt and is described as a prophet. She dances and plays the tambourine  and sings of the downfall of the Egyptian army, “Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” Miriam was the greatest female hero in the history of the Jewish people and her name must have been given to vast numbers of Jewish girls. In the New Testament there are a number of woman called Mary, and sometimes it is difficult to know which one is being spoken of.

So what do we have? We have a young woman with a very common name, from a background which is poor but absolutely so, engaged to a builder. The outsider, looking in, would have seen nothing special at all.

To this girl there comes a visitor – a messenger, which is what the word ‘angel’ means. This messenger tells her that God has chosen her for a special task. I love the way this is described in Charles Causley’s poem, Ballad of the Bread Man.

Mary stood in the kitchen
Baking a loaf of bread.
An angel flew in through the window.
We’ve got a job for you, he said.

God in his big gold heaven,
Sitting in his big blue chair,
Wanted a mother for his little son.
Suddenly saw you there.

Unsurprisingly is taken aback by this. How can she have a child when she is not yet married and is still a virgin? She is told that the child will be conceived through the power of God’s Holy Spirit and will be the Son of God.

Outside life is going on just as it always has. There is nothing for anyone to see that shows how significant this moment is. As human beings carry on with their ordinary everyday tasks the fate of eternity hangs in the balance, waiting for Mary’s word . And it comes, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”

From now on her life will never be the same. This ordinary girl will walk beside Jesus as he grows in the awareness of his nature and mission, and will stand beside his cross – her agony a reflection of his. He will be '...for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed  so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed” and for her “a sword will pierce your ... soul.' 

She will know the joy of his resurrection and will be present on the day when the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Church. She will become, in the vision of John, “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”

And all because, at this point, she said “yes”. A “yes” that holds nothing back.

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“Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide” wrote the hymn writer James R. Lowell. To each one of us there comes appoint when we decide who will sit in the driving seat of our life and steer its course. Mary’s choice place God firmly in control. She didn’t always get it right. I’m glad we are not bound like our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters to hold a view of Mary that places her beyond the realms of normal human beings. The Gospels show her, on at least two occasions, failing to understand what Jesus is about. She didn’t always get it right, but she always followed the path that her ‘Yes’ to God set before her.

And so must we. Outside the busy world is going about its normal business. The frantic rush of preparations for the Christmas holidays goes on unabated. But today God speaks to us. In the words of a song we often sing he asks us,

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

Will our answer be, like Mary’s, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”