Mary, Prophet of Impossible Possibility

Luke 1: 26-38

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”[a] 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”[b] 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born[c] will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Immanuel, that’s what the season of Advent anticipates and what Christmas is about – the coming of Jesus, God with us, just as Gabriel announced.  Yet, I’m struck by the insight of 16th century Reformer, Martin Luther, who wrote in one of his Christmas sermons that the real miracle of Christmas is not the incarnation.  The real miracle is that Mary said “Yes”.

Stories of miraculous births abounded in the ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman world.  In fact, virgin-born gods were a common phenomenon in pagan mythology. Some emperors even boosted their status with the claim! But if this is to be more than yet another story of a God impregnating a mortal, I want to push Luther’s insight even further and let not only Mary’s ‘Yes’, but her remarkable agency in this story reverberate a little more loudly and perhaps, profoundly.  

The Christmas carol – “The Angel Gabriel” promises Mary that she is known as the “blessed Mother” – the “highly favoured lady” who “all generations will laud and honour”.   But Mary didn’t actually fair so well through the 16th century Protestant Reformation.  To John Calvin, one of the key theologians at the time, she was an “idol” who diminished the importance of Jesus.  Other reformers were so concerned about excluding Mary from the economy of salvation, that she slowly became excluded all together.  

The other image in the song – Mary as the ‘lowly maiden’, ‘meekly bowing her head’ is what survived.  This became the ideal image not only of Mary, but of women in general – the only expression of faithfulness appropriate for her and all women in the church.  

More recent Protestant engagements with Mary have led to a new appreciation of her in some church circles.  More and more, Mary is unsurprisingly praised for her bold confidence which found expression in faithfulness, discipleship, and suffering love.  Mary’s magnificat which sings of God’s justice and salvation with political, economic and social implications is a favourite in the United Church and other justice-oriented denominations.

Yet I believe this story holds even more for us, and I wonder how we might, in this generation, laud and honour Mary once again?  

The title of my reflection today has already let you in on my conclusion.  

Mary,  prophet of impossible possibility. 

Now of course the history of biblical interpretation has not typically seen Mary this way.  But that has to do with a centuries old bias against, and even fear of, strong prophetic women.  Better to keep Mary meek and bowed over before the white wings and fiery eyes of a male angel

Yet where in the story is Mary meek?  Where does she bow her head?  Scripture actually presents her entirely otherwise.  First, she is perplexed – confused that she is being greeted by an angel.  The Greek word used here also carries the meaning of ‘agitated’ or ‘distressed’.  Far from a passive receiving of Gabriel’s word, she questions it.  She talks back.  She’s a bit pissed off!  “How can this be?” she wants to know.  

Mary starts her engagement with God’s profound intermingling in her life in perplexity and agency,  and she never leaves that space.  

What Mary does is the same as every prophet before her.  She expresses her uncertainty and her excuses and finally gives faithful assent to God’s will.  “Here am I”, she says.  

The call of Mary follows the prophetic call pattern as narrated over and over in the Hebrew Bible.  First comes the call and commission from God – “Hail, favoured one – here is what God’s about to do!”.  

Then come the excuses or resistance – in Mary’s case that she’s still a virgin, making pregnancy unlikely.  “How can this be?”, she wants to know.  Moses also offered a rebuttal when God first told him what the plan was. “But I’m a lousy public speaker!  Send my brother!”  

Next in the prophetic pattern comes some assurance that God is in on the risk the prophet is being asked to take.  “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”.  If you’re like me, you’ve always heard this part of Gabriel’s announcement as a sort of ‘how-to’ explanation of divine insemination.  But read as a description of how Mary gets pregnant makes the Holy Spirit sound a little creepy.  

I no longer believe Gabriel is giving a literal answer to Mary’s “How can this be, I’m a virgin?” retort.  Rather, the angel is offering the usual response to a doubtful and resistant prophet trying to shirk responsibility – the promise of divine revelation and presence.   

The Holy Spirit will come upon Mary precisely as the Holy Spirit came upon the prophet Isaiah, and on Jesus in his later use of Isaiah’s words – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…”.  

Mary is being anointed here, not impregnated. 

And then – the overshadowing by the Most High – words familiar in the popular imagination as a moment of revelation and a space from which God speaks.  The same words for the overshadowing of Mary are used to describe what happened to Peter, John and James at Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain – “a cloud came and overshadowed them, and from that cloud a voice spoke.  The word ‘overshadow’ also has biblical connotations of God’s protection – as a mother Hen’s wings overshadow and protect her young.

Again, not a story of a passive, submissive Mary being impregnated.  

Gabriel is announcing God’s anointing and commissioning of Mary, as well as God’s promise to be her ally and accomplice, her protector and pillar of cloud through the desert.  

And finally, the consent of the prophet.  Mary says “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”   Isaiah says “Here am I, send me”.  The Call of Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Samuel, Jeremiah …. And Mary… all following this pattern.  “Here I am”  “Here am I”. 

Like other prophetic narratives, the story of Gabriel’s announcement to Mary, and Mary’s ‘Yes’ to God, is a story of God’s dream once again finding a home in the most impossible of places and the most unlikely of people.  Mary is saying ‘yes’ to carry forward God’s impossible dream into yet another manifestation. 

From that first stroll with Adam and Eve in the Garden, to the rainbow of promise to Noah, to the narrow escape of the Exodus and the resurrected dry bones of Ezekial , God has always been in the business of forgiving and reconciling and bringing back to life.  Yet what we see in God’s unpredictable move with Mary is that God is also in the business of trying something new when a new situation requires it!  Although God had been intimately present to people before this, this downwardly mobile God isn’t afraid to mix it up and get mixed up with us in an increasingly entangled way!

Mary is the one chosen to be the prophet of God’s new undertaking, this next shock wave of impossibility – literally the bearer of this good news.  Mary is the one who’s ‘Here I am’ bursts open the portal through which God’s dream comes to life.   

She is, for us, the prophet of this impossible possibility, and because of it, we have reason for expectation, hope and yes, even joy, in the face of every impossibility.  

Horrible hunger and starvation are not the last word in an indifferent world.  The senseless slaughter of people, whether by physical or cultural genocide, is not the last word.  Domestic strife. Heartache.  Alienation.  Not the last word. Neither are senility, disease, and mental illness. The last word about us will not be the medical examiner's report. 

Death will never have the last word because the next-to-last word was Mary’s, and is ours, invited in all our perplexity and confusion and certainly distress at the state of our world, to say with her ‘Yes, Here am I”. 

And in that moment the miracle of the impossible has already happened.

The last word is God’s.  God, who waited for Mary’s ‘Yes’ and then made a home beside her.  Inside her.  God took up residence in Mary, and in so doing made the first move towards taking up residence in us.  

That’s the last word.  

But first, the invitation is ours to accept.  Yes, yes.  Here I am.