Luke 1:26-55
Saying “Yes” to
the Impossible
James Sledge December
19, 2021 – Advent 4
The Annunciation
12th century Russian icon
There is
a scene in Lewis Carroll’s Through the
Looking Glass where Alice is speaking with the white queen. Alice has just
learned that the queen lives backwards, remembering things before they happen.
In the course of this conversation Alice becomes a bit bewildered and begins to
cry. During the queen’s efforts to cheer her up, she asks Alice how old she is.
“I'm seven and a half, exactly.”
“You needn't say "exactly",” the Queen remarked. “I can believe it without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
“I can't believe that!” said Alice.
“Can't you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There's no use trying,” she said. “One can't believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Christians should surely know about believing impossible things. After all we speak casually of Jesus turning water into wine, and we say that he died and rose again on the third day. And of course there is that line in “The Apostles’ Creed” that says Jesus “was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.”
Even though not much is made of this virgin birth in the Bible, it became a big deal for the Church. The Roman Catholic Church expanded it, saying that Mary’s own birth was miraculous – Immaculate according to the doctrine, and that she remained a virgin her entire life. Never mind that the Bible speaks of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, and one of those brothers, James, becomes leader of the fledgling Church following Pentecost.
When the Protestant Reformation came along, the Reformers insisted that we should only believe those impossible things that are actually in the Bible. And so we tossed out Mary’s perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception, but we kept the virgin birth. Protestants like believing impossible things as much as Catholics. We just have a different list.
All this is a long way of saying that while we Christians may disagree and even argue about which impossible things we must believe, it generally goes without saying that we expect people to believe impossible things, perhaps even six before breakfast.
However, there is not necessarily much impact from believing these impossible things. Think about it. How much difference does it make in the way you live that Mary was or wasn’t a virgin? I know Christians of deep faith, who live exemplary lives, some who believe in a historical virgin birth, and some who don’t. Believing or not believing this particular impossible thing doesn’t seem to make all that much difference.
But in our gospel this morning, Mary hears of an impossible thing that will not happen without her cooperation, without her “Yes.”
We Protestants have tended to diminish Mary, at times overreacting to what we have seen as unsupportable doctrines of the Catholic Church. But Luke presents Mary to us as both disciple and prophet. Confronted with God’s impossible plans, she scarcely objects, exhibiting a faith more trusting than that of Moses and many other heroes of the Old Testament. “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
And having said “Yes” to the impossible, the prophet Mary begins to see the impossible unfold. When she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, she sings of how God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; (God) has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Not God will, but God has. Mary has said yes to the impossible, and it is now a part of her. She experiences it as present in her life.
As Christmas draws near, we bring out some of those impossible things that Christians proclaim. We remember a baby in a manger, shepherd in the fields, and we join with the angels in their impossible song of “Peace on earth.”
Of course we don’t believe that impossible thing, at least not in a way that makes any real difference in our lives. We sing of peace on earth, of a prince of peace, but we know that peace can be maintained only by the best military money can buy. And America spends more on its military than the next ten nations combined.
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Meister Eckhart, a 14th century German priest and mystic once spoke of how, like Mary, we are all called to become part of the impossible thing that God is doing, saying, “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.” It requires our “Yes” for that to happen. Mary must say “Yes” to the impossible, and so must we.
Christmas celebrates the results of Mary’s “Yes,” but all too often it stops there. It forgets that when we say our “Yes,” and the Spirit comes upon us, we become part of God’s impossible plan as well. We begin to see and live out that new, impossible thing, the reign of God that Jesus says has drawn near.
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Back in 1998, a six year old boy named Ryan learned from his first grade teacher that many children in Africa had to walk incredible distances just to get clean water. Stunned by this, he decided that he should build a well for a village. He began raising money by doing household chores. After four months he had raised only $70 toward a $2000 well, but he kept at it, and in 1999, seven year old Ryan’s first well was completed in a Ugandan village. Over twenty years later, the foundation begun by Ryan has completed over 2700 water and sanitation projects in 17 countries around the world, bringing clean water to more than a million people.[1]
Perhaps if Ryan had been older and “wiser,” he would have known better, known that this was an impossible task for a little boy with no money. But being a child, he was more open to the impossible than many of us are. And maybe that’s why God’s impossible plan begins with a 15 year old girl named Mary, who wasn’t old enough to know better.
What impossible thing of God is just waiting for your “Yes?”
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